Love Me In The Dark
by Nightmare Prince
Summary: The scariest part of Azkaban had never been the dementors or the inmates. It wasn't even the sea that crashed around the prison in a perpetual storm. It was the solitude that forced you to confront who you really are on the inside. Hermione Granger knew what she was and why she'd been sentenced to this hell. In the cell next to hers however, Draco Malfoy wasn't quite so sure.
1. Chapter 1

**.**

* * *

**Chapter One**

* * *

_-Day O-_

Rising from an island in the North Sea, Azkaban was little more than a triangular fortress built upon a rock. The waves crashed against the walls, splattering the place in foam and spray, and it was a small miracle that the tiny dock hadn't been smashed to rubble by the ever-present storm.

The boat that brought her here was barely big enough to fit the three of them, but it was remarkably steady despite the maelstrom around them. The spells upon this place where ancient and powerful, she knew, and they'd only been doubled since the end of the war.

"What are you waiting for?" Auror Savage prodded her in the back with his wand. "Start walking."

Sucking in a breath, Hermione climbed onto the dock, taking care to keep her gaze locked with the slick stone doors of the prison that was to become her home for the next year. Her eyes stung, and her hair was slick against her skin. Travelling to Azkaban by boat had soaked her to the bone, and as she walked towards the entrance, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd never be dry again.

The doors creaked open with a blood-curdling screech, but she barely flinched as the sound sent a shiver down her spine. Painfully aware of the wands aimed at her back by both Savage and Proudfoot, she entered the prison without a word, the metal chains around her wrists clinking as she moved.

A witch was waiting for her. Dressed in black robes, she was a tall and imposing woman with beady-eyes and steel-grey hair, but Hermione barely reacted as she was grabbed by the cuffs and half-dragged towards an antechamber. _Show no weakness, _she told herself. _You deserve this. _

The door to the antechamber slammed shut behind her, and she found herself alone with the imposing woman. The room was lined with metal shelves with a single rickety table in the middle, and Hermione scanned the items upon the shelves. They were in a storeroom of some sort, she thought to herself.

"Hermione Granger," said the woman, looking her up and down with an almost twisted sneer on her face. "I am Warden Williams. Consider yourself lucky. I don't usually oversee a new inmate's orientation."

"I'm positively blessed." No matter how hard she tried, Hermione was unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.

"That attitude is not going to get you far." Warden Williams strode across the room, grasping a grey jumpsuit from the nearest shelf and tossing it in her direction. It landed on the floor. "Strip."

Hermione had expected this to happen. She'd read enough books to know exactly what prison was like. Without a word, she stripped out of her sodden clothes, pausing only when she got to her underwear. She bit her lip, looking up at the warden with a dull glare. _You don't get to be angry, _said a small voice in her head, and she agreed. Swallowing down her indignation, she discarded her bra and knickers, and she stood there shivering, as naked as the day she was born.

What followed was hell. She bit her lip as she was searched for contraband, and the rough intrusion into her body is one that she was going to feel until the day she died. She knew that much. Whoever said that a woman's touch was gentle was a goddamn liar, because Williams is rougher than sandpaper as she pried into her with gloved fingers. Throughout it all, Hermione did exactly as she was told.

She coughed and bent over when she was asked to, and she raised her tongue and moved aside her hair and even spread her legs, and when Williams was finally satisfied, she could only glare at the woman as she yanked on her jumpsuit. The fabric was coarse, scratching at her skin, and it was so thin and threadbare that she didn't see how it would ever keep her warm.

"You're a sullen bitch, aren't you, inmate?" Warden Williams raised an eyebrow, looking distinctly unimpressed. "I'd be dancing with joy if I was in your shoes. Most people get a few decades for what you've done. You only get a year."

Hermione didn't respond. If it had been up to her, she'd have gladly welcomed a life sentence. It still wouldn't be long enough to atone for her crimes.

Idly, she noticed that she hadn't been given a pair of shoes, and the floor was so rough that it was already beginning to bite into her feet. She didn't dare complain, however. The threadbare jumpsuit was all she had, and there was something about the way Williams looked at her that made it quite clear that even that had been a conditional gift.

There were no standards in this place, and even without the dementors, it was still the closest place to hell that existed for the living.

"Maslow," barked Williams, rapping her knuckles on the door. "Get in here."

A brunet auror walked into the antechamber. He was lithe as a reed with an easy grin that didn't quite reach his brown eyes, and the way he looked at her sent a slight shiver down her spine. Nobody had leered at her like that since Scabier, and she was well aware of what the Snatcher had once had in mind for her.

"Escort the inmate to its cell," said Williams. "Take her through the scenic route."

Maslow's grin widened. Grasping her by the left shoulder, he jerked her out the door and towards a flight of stairs. The floor scraped at her feet as she struggled to match his pace, and she nearly stumbled at the fifth step when she slipped across a patch of seawater. Maslow steadied her, his fingers tightening on her shoulder until she was certain there'd be a bruise there in the morning, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from yelping.

"Half of the scum here are going to eat you alive," said Maslow, his voice deathly serious as he led her into a corridor.

Someone flung themselves against the bars to their cell as they walked past. Another shrieked. A third flung what looked like a plate towards them only for it to clatter off the spell, deflected by some sort of charm upon the bars. She shuddered, recognising a few faces. That was Avery. Macnair.

"My advice?" Maslow continued. "Stay in your cell. Make a few friends to have your back. Trust me. A war hero like you? These bastards have nothing left to lose, and they all have scores to settle."

"Thank you," replied Hermione. The reality was sinking in. _I deserve this. _It was the truth, but it didn't make the thought of her imprisonment any easier. Since she'd been sentenced, she'd kept up her stoic expression and held it all together, but she couldn't do that anymore.

She felt herself begin to unravel, and she clenched her fists to keep herself from breaking down. Soon. She'd be alone in her cell soon enough. There was no way she could let herself show weakness here, not when there were so many venomous glares aimed in her direction.

When at last she was shown her cell, Hermione realized that it was far worse than she could have ever imagined. It was damp, and the stone so rough that it may as well have been a cave. There was a single slit in the wall, letting in sea-spray. The bed frame was made of rickety wood, and the mattress was thin and covered in stains.

"Welcome to your new home, Miss Granger," said Maslow, gesturing for her to step into the cell. She did, and the bars clanged shut behind her a few seconds later.

The auror's footsteps thud as he walked away, and Hermione sank into the mattress. They had given her a blanket, at least, though it was as thin as her jumpsuit. She swallowed, looking around. There was a toilet set into the wall, and that was it.

That was all she had. _I deserve this. _

She wanted to scream and cry, but she couldn't muster up the energy to do either. Instead, Hermione lay down on her bed and closed her eyes, hoping that the nightmares she was sure to have would be sweeter than the memories which would never leave.

* * *

_-Day 1-_

When she woke the next morning, the first thing Hermione did was look around her cell. She sighed. In the dim light of dawn, it was far worse than she had initially thought. The walls were rough-hewn from solid stone, and the air itself was damp. There was a small puddle beneath the window-slit, and when she went to investigate, she found salt dusting the stone.

The notion that Kingsley had reformed Azkaban after the war echoed in her mind, and the mere idea of what it was like before the war brought bile rushing to her throat. _I deserve this. This is my penance. It isn't enough. _She bit her lip. That much was true.

Slowly, she walked around the cell. It didn't take her long, but she found something that caught her attention.

There was a hole in the wall, just a little larger than her fist. She reckoned that she could fit her arm through it if she tried, but she'd no doubt tear up her skin forcing it past the rough rock. Curiosity began to set in. Kneeling, she peered through it. Hermione sighed in disappointment. All she could see was a blank expanse of wall, and it was likely that she was simply looking into an empty cell. Idly, she realized that the partitions between each cell were thicker than she'd thought, because the hole was as deep as her forearm. She groaned, not knowing what she'd expected to find on the other side, but wishing it had been anything other than nothing.

Something moved.

She jerked away, her heart thudding in her ears, and her back slammed into the rickety frame of her bed. It creaked, loud and deafening in the silence, and she took a deep breath to steady herself.

"Is there anyone there?" a voice called from the other end of the hole, and it was oddly familiar.

Frowning, she crawled back towards the hole and looked through it. A single grey eye looked back at her, half-hidden by a lock of greasy white-blond hair, the strands caked with grime. The pieces clicked, and she groaned.

"Malfoy?" she asked.

"Granger?" His voice was a mix of curiosity and shock. "What the devil are you doing in here?"

"Wondering if it would be possible to change cells," she shot back, unable to resist the retort.

On the other side of the wall, he chuckled. Disappearing from the other end of the hole, she heard a bed creak in what must be his cell, and then she heard his voice.

"Easy, Granger, I don't bite that much. Besides, if you're here, you should know there's a lot worse than me around."

She didn't reply. Instead, she climbed onto her own bed and stared out the narrow slit that served as a window, watching as the tide came in. The boat that had brought her to the island was barely visible in the distance, a faint speck upon the horizon, and Malfoy's words echoed in her ears.

_I know,_ she thought. _I'm one of them. _

His was not a friendly face to her, and it had honestly never occurred to her that she'd be serving her sentence alongside him. Hermione wondered what would happen if she shoved her bed against the hole in the wall and tried to pretend that she had never realized he was there, but the idea itself was asinine. Like it as not, she was stuck with him now, and in the back of her mind, she couldn't help but want to laugh.

She'd definitely wished for a worse sentence than the one she'd been given, and the gods had seen fit to condemn her to a year with Malfoy as a neighbour. This really was hell, she thought.

A dull clang echoed through the cell, and she turned in time to find a steel tray being shoved through the gap beneath the bars. There was a dented bowl on it, filled with something grey and runny on the tray, and a battered tin cup right next to it. She hurried towards the bars in time to see Maslow disappearing around the corner, escorting a tall blonde woman pushing a cart.

Picking up her tray, she walked towards her bed. There was a hunk of bread behind the bowl, but it was so hard that it could well have been a rock. Her stomach growled despite the unappetizing feast in front of her, and she cautiously brought a spoonful of the grey porridge to her lips.

It wasn't as foul as she'd expected it to be. Instead, the porridge was bland, like oats that had been boiled in water instead of milk and flavored with nothing but a pinch of salt.

"How's your slop?" Malfoy called from his cell, and she groaned. It would seem that the eight months he'd already spent in this place had made him a lot more chatty.

"It's slop," she replied.

"Trust me, Granger, you'll be grateful for the slop when you see what we eat when it's Barker in the kitchens." He laughed, and she almost missed the hint of bitterness in his voice. "Do yourself a favor and dip the bread into the slop. It's the only way you'll get it down without cracking a tooth."

Deciding to take his word for it, she did as Malfoy said. He was probably onto something. The bread was so hard and stale that she could probably use it as a weapon in a pinch and soaking it in the slop would probably make it swallowable.

Despite everything, she was oddly grateful for the pointer. Malfoy may not be a friendly face to her. In fact, he was probably one of the furthest things from a friend that she could have. It didn't change that he was familiar, and the devil you knew was always better than the devil you don't.

She bit her lip. This was something she deserved. It was hell, her personal penance for the crime she committed. She still couldn't deny that it was nice to know she wasn't alone, even if her present companion left a lot to be desired.

* * *

_-Day 4-_

"So, are you ever going to tell me what you're here for?" asked Malfoy.

"What would it matter to you?" she replied.

"Call it curiosity if you want," he said. "It gets pretty boring here."

She could believe that. It had been four days, and she was already bored numb. There was nothing to do in her cell, and she was beginning to see why so many of the inmates went mad. It couldn't have been the dementors. Not all of it at least. The monotony was infuriatingly boring.

"Well?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Hermione sighed. She really didn't. It wasn't a memory she wanted to dwell on. Forcing the intruding thoughts out of her mind, she clenched her fists. Her nails dug into her palms, deep enough to draw blood, and the sting was a good pain. It made her forget, if only for a few moments.

She sat back-to-back with a wall between them and a hole beside their ears. Malfoy was still one of the last people she wanted for company, but it didn't change the fact that he was a voice that wasn't in her head. Conversation was distracting.

It just needed to stay away from the topics she wanted to forget.

"You do realize that's only going to make me more curious, right?" he asked. "The _perfect _Hermione Granger, war heroine with an Order of Merlin, First Class under her belt before she's twenty-years old, thrown into Azkaban? Can you blame me for wanting to know more?"

She snorted. "How would you like it if I started prying into you?"

"What's there to know? You were at my trial."

Hermione remembered the trial. It had been one of the more-drawn out aspects of the justice system at work, to the extent where seven other Death Eaters had all been sentenced to life in the time it took Draco Malfoy to get himself three years with a chance of parole. What had been the word thrown around so often by his defence?

Duress. It was a funny word, she thought. She'd heard is so often before leaving for Australia that it had given her a headache. It hadn't worked very often. Malfoy was an exception, clearly, and she knew that it had been Harry's testimony that had gotten him such a light slap on the wrist punishment for all the things he'd done.

That was something they had in common. Harry had testified in her defence as well, even as she'd pleaded for him not to, to just accept that she was guilty and let her deal with the consequences of what she'd wrought.

Hermione swallowed. Her mind was slipping towards dangerous territory, and she did not want to go there. All that mattered was that she was here now, and that this was something she deserved.

"How did it make you feel when your aunt tortured me on your drawing room floor?" she asked.

He made no reply, and she smiled.

"What was it like when Voldemort told you that he'd murder your mother if you didn't do as he said? What was it like when he tortured her in front of you because of your father's failures? When _you_ tortured all those Muggle-borns because it was what _he _asked you to do, how did it make you feel?"

There was a silence for a long time after she stopped talking, and she stared ahead at the opposite wall, a pang of guilt flickering in her chest. There'd been no need to go in that hard. Had there? She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms. It was a distraction. A good distraction.

"You've made your point," he replied, and the sardonic drawl that usually coloured his voice was gone. "Fine."

The sound of his footsteps echoed through the hole, closely followed by the soft creak of his bed. Something rattled near the bars, and she turned in time to watch a rat scurrying across the floor. There was a flash of green light, and she tensed.

The rat lay on its side, unmoving, and booted footsteps rang out through the gloom. A man in black robes with green stripes along his sleeves knelt down to pick up the dead rat by the tail, and he turned towards her with an impassive expression on his face. Prodding it with his wand, he approached the bars.

"We used to have cats on the island, you know? Animals are not affected by dementors. They kept the rats at bay," said the man, cocking his head to the side as if just now seeing her. "Forgive me. I am Healer Daniels. You must be the new inmate."

"It's just a rat," she said. Her gut twisted as it swung like a pendulum from his gloved fingers, already growing stiff. "It wasn't doing anything."

He raised an eyebrow. "There are no more cats on Azkaban. We must find some way to keep the rats at bay lest they grow to outnumber us." Chuckling, he tossed the carcass into her cell. It bounced across the floor before rolling against her leg, and she jerked aside. Bile rose in her throat, and she inched away.

He tipped his head, surveying her for a few more seconds before continuing on his way, and Hermione wondered what the hell was wrong with the man. Her chest was tight as she got to her feet, gingerly reaching down to grasp the rat. It was still warm. Swallowing down the urge to vomit, she tried to pretend this was just a potion's class, she carried it towards the window and shoved it out into the sea.

Were all the guards mad? Was it something about this place that brought out the very worst in everyone? Confusion filled her, and she slumped to the ground. It was as though every member of staff on this godforsaken rock existed to simply unnerve and unsettle, and she turned towards the hole in the wall.

Malfoy would probably know what was wrong with the Healer. He'd been here for around eight months already, and he'd surely be able to give her the details. Moving back towards the hole, she sat cross-legged on the floor and peered through. The hole was too small to give her much of a view, but she was sure that he was still on his bed.

"Malfoy? Who's the healer?"

There was a snort from the other side of the wall, followed by a silence that stretched on forever. She dug her nails into her palms, and it took everything she had to not cuss him out for ignoring her. Was he mad at her for proving a point earlier? He shouldn't be. He'd been the one who'd pushed first.

With a sigh, she turned around and leaned against the wall. The boredom had already begun to creep back into the corners of her mind, and as had become a norm for her, she only had herself to blame.

* * *

_-Day 9-_

She had been here for a week, or nearly enough to make no difference. It was already becoming hard to keep track. It was so dark in her cell with the only light coming from a single slit that she'd stopped counting. The storm clouds circled the prison in a storm that never ended, and they blotted out the sun often.

It was a spell, she knew. It had to be. Without the dementors, there needed to be new measures put into place to make escape impossible. The storm was just one of these new enchantments, but it whipped the sea around them into a frenzy all the same.

She didn't think anyone could survive even a few moments in those waters without being smashed to pieces against the rocks.

Malfoy hadn't spoken to her since that last exchange, and the constant solitude was beginning to weigh on her. Sometimes, she heard screams from the floors below, or else there'd be cackling laughs from the floor above. Maslow still made his rounds, but he never stopped to talk. At most, he'd pause at the bars to leer at her while the cook shoved her tray into the cell.

It was something of a nightmare, the solitude, and she hated it. Without anything to distract her, she dwelled on her memories, and they hurt far worse than anything this prison could throw at her. Even when she slept, she couldn't escape them, the pillows and the thrashing and the broken looks in their eyes.

Hermione swallowed, digging her nails into her palm until she drew blood. It was a good pain. It made her forget. _You deserve this. _She bit her lip, gnawing at it until she tasted copper on her tongue. The bitter sting filled her mind, and it was almost—_almost_—enough to keep her crimes in the past where they belonged.

The scrape of a tray being pushed into her cell alerted her to the fact that she wasn't alone, and she turned. Surprise flickered in her eyes. Maslow wasn't leaning on the bars as he always did, though the cook was still there, already pushing along his cart to the next cell.

"Mail," said Warden Williams, wedging a small stack of letters between the bars. "Aren't you popular today, inmate?"

_Mail! _Hermione all but ran across the cell, nearly stepping in her gruel as she yanked them free from the bars. The envelopes had been ripped open, she noticed, but she didn't care. The writing on them was so familiar that it felt like a knife had been shoved through her heart. From Harry's messy scrawl to the scratches that passed for letters were Ron was concerned… it was almost as if she could hear them saying the words they'd written.

Warmth tingled along her fingers as she looked back at the sneering warden, and she smiled. She couldn't help it. In this place of gloom, holding letters from her friends was like holding the sun itself in her hands.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Warden Williams snorted, clearly unimpressed before moving to the next cell. A clang rang out through the air, followed by the rustling of paper against rusted steel.

"Only two for you this month, inmate. Seems you're missing a letter. What a shame."

Malfoy sucked in a breath, and Hermione didn't need to ask to know something was wrong. Why should she care, though? He'd been ignoring her for days now, abandoning her to the bitter memories which threatened to strangle her in her sleep.

Warden Williams continued on her way, pausing to clang at each cell she passed, and Hermione returned to her bed with her letter. The frame creaked below her, and she unfolded the first. Her lips curved into a fond smile as she read Harry's letter, and her heart ached. She was halfway through when a strangled sob tore her away from her letter, and she looked up in concern.

"Malfoy?" she called out. "Is so—"

"Shut up," he snapped, and she flinched at the inflection in his voice. It was a garbled mix of anger and anguish, and it was not something she'd have ever expected to hear from him.

She didn't press the issue. He'd tell her if he wanted to. Prying into secrets never ended well. Hermione walked towards the hole in the wall and took a seat beside it. It was less comfortable than her bed, but at least she wouldn't have to yell if the conversation started up again.

Time seemed to stretch around her, and she'd already read through four of the letters in her pile before she heard rustling through the wall. Malfoy sighed, and she set down her letter expectantly.

"I get three letters every month," he began in a hollow voice. "Three. One from my mother, one from Blaise, and one from my godmother. I'll just be getting them from Blaise and my mother from now on."

"I'm sorry," she replied, not knowing what else she could see.

"Cancer," he said. "I knew it was coming. I should be happy that she's not in pain anymore. It was pretty bad when I last saw her."

Her heart constricted, and she pressed her nails into her palms. The fresh clots broke open and blood spilled across her fingers. _Yeah. It was pretty bad near the end. _She couldn't breathe. No. This wasn't about her. She needed to forget, to push it away so it didn't hurt. The memories were like tiny needles against her temples, and she shoved them down as best she could.

"It's funny," he continued. "You'd think that with magic we wouldn't have to worry about things like cancer, but…" He trailed off, another sob bursting from his lips.

"Makes the war seem more stupid that it was," she replied. "We're all just human in the end."

"The war was stupid," he said, and there was a conviction in his voice that shone through his grief. "It was a stupid and senseless and I supported it because I was a stupid git who got caught up in the stupidity of it all. You want to know what I thought about when I tortured those children? When I fought for that monster?"

"Malfoy, you're not thinki—"

"Shut up and let me talk, Granger," he cut her off. "When I tortured those kids with the worst curses known to man, the only thing I could think of that would drown out their screams was that their blood was filthy and mine was as pure as can be, but we're all still bleeding red at the end of the day, aren't we?"

"Mal—"

"I said shut up. I don't want absolution. I'm here because I deserve it." His words were sharper than a razor. "My godmother didn't deserve this. She was a sweet woman who treated me as if I was her own son. I was best friends with her daughters. I'm sure you know Daphne and Astoria? They were in school with us."

Hermione kept silent. She remembered Daphne Greengrass well enough. They'd taken Ancient Runes together. Hogwarts felt like it had been a lifetime ago.

"I'm not going to be able to attend her funeral," said Malfoy. "I don't get to pay my respects or say goodbye, and I deserve that for all the pain I caused. But in fourteen months, I'm going to get out of this place and go right back to living my life, but those people I hurt? They're still going to be dead."

Hermione didn't know what to say. Her letters abandoned at her side, she leaned back against the wall with her legs stretched out in front of her, and she listened to him cry. Life wasn't fair. That's why she was still alive.

* * *

_-Day 16-_

The days ticked by, but neither of them brought up his breakdown. It was on the very short list of topics that had become taboo, and so long as they avoided the things that caused them pain, the conversation could keep itself going. There could be no mention of their crimes or their families, or even of what had happened during the war, but just being able to talk about the weather was so much better than being trapped in silence.

"I'm bored," he drawled from the other side of the wall.

"You're always bored," she replied.

"You're lucky to have me here, you know," he said. "The first week I spent here, there was nobody else on this floor. I used my spoon to scrape tic-tac-toe boxes onto the floor just to keep myself entertained."

"You played tic-tac-toe with yourself?" She couldn't keep the amusement from her voice. "How'd that work out?"

"I always won." He chuckled. "By the time that got boring, they'd put Goyle in your cell. He can't carry a conversation to save his life, but it was better than being alone."

"What happened to him?" she asked.

"He decided to try sticking Maslow with a spoon he'd been sharpening against that stone next to your window. It didn't occur to him that all our cutlery is charmed to turn into a feather if you try to hurt someone with it. So off to another cell he was shipped, and I haven't seen him since."

Not for the first time since their unlikely acquaintanceship—friendship was a word far too strong for what they had, in her opinion—she was left speechless. Fidgeting with the hem of her sleeves, she tried to think of something to say for a second time and failed. There really was no good response to something like that.

"Talking about Goyle is depressing," he drawled. "Granger, you're a smart girl. Come up with something we can do to pass the time."

"Go play tic-tac-toe with yourself."

"Is that a euphemism? It sounds like a euphemism. I mean, I haven't showered in a month and I'm filthy, but if you think it would be enter—"

"No!" She pinched the bridge of her nose, and it occurred to her that Malfoy had somehow become even more annoying now that he was not tormenting her at every turn. She frowned, trying to come up with something that could be played without physical contact. Anything to keep him from saying something like _that _again, because she dearly did not want to think about him getting his rocks off.

I spy? That might work, she thought, but as quickly as the thought came to her, she realized that neither of them could see much of what was in the other's cell. Guess my number? That had been boring even when she'd been a child.

"How about truth or dare?" he asked, interrupting her train of thought.

"_You_ know how to play truth or dare?" She laughed. The thought of Malfoy and the other Slytherins playing truth or dare in their dungeon was strangely amusing. They must have done, though. She hardly believed that they'd spent all their free time talking about how they were better than everyone else.

"I'm a pureblood, not an idiot," he said. "Of course I know how to play truth or dare? You think it's Muggle-exclusive or something?"

"Let's go with or something," she answered.

What was there to lose? If he asked something that she didn't want to answer, she could always just lie. He'd never know either way. It would be a good distraction. Right now, she could use anything that took her mind off everything she wanted to forget.

"I don't think there are many dares we can do here," she said. "More like a game of truth, right?"

"Right," he replied. "Truth."

"When is your birthday?" she asked.

It was a simple enough question to begin things, but there wasn't much about him that she actually knew. She frowned. They'd known each other since they were eleven, and they'd shared over three-dozen classes during their schooling career, but she honestly didn't know much about him at all. It was understandable, given their history and his personality, but it was still something that gave her pause.

He could lie to her as well, and she'd be none the wiser.

"5 June, 1980," he replied.

"Huh." She wanted to laugh. "I'm older than you. 19 September, 1979."

"You're practically over the hill, aren't you?" He chuckled. "My turn. What's your favourite book?"

"The Lord of the Rings," she replied. "You probably wouldn't know it."

"Why would I not know Tolkien?" Malfoy seemed surprised. "They carry his books in Flourish and Blotts."

"In the Muggle Fiction section, Malfoy," she corrected, trying to hide her own surprise. "You don't strike me as someone who spent much time there."

"A story is a story," he replied. "It doesn't matter who wrote it. All that matters is whether it's worth reading."

"Who are you and what have you done with Draco Malfoy?"

He chuckled. "Funny, Granger. I'm going to count that as your turn."

"That's cheating!"

"I'm a Slytherin. It's sort of what we do."

He had her there. Swallowing the laugh that threatened to spill from her lips, she adjusted herself so that she was comfortable. This game had seemed so silly when she'd agree to play, but it was nice. It took the edge of things.

She could see the year that stretched in front of her, and she at least knew that boredom wouldn't drive her insane.

"What's your favourite song?" he asked.

"_Dream On_ by Aerosmith," she replied. "Now that one I'm sure you don't know."

"You would be correct in that assumption." His fingers tapped an unfamiliar rhythm against the wall. "Mine's _Anthem of the Damned_."

"The Hobgoblins, Malfoy?" She raised an eyebrow. "They don't seem to be your type. I expected something classical."

"Excuse you. I'm plenty rock and roll. In fact, I went to a concert at the end of third year with Blaise and Theo, and it got pretty wild, if I do say so myself. We crowd-surfed and everything."

Hermione didn't know what to make of that. The only thing she remembered about him from third year was that she'd punched him hard enough to break his nose, but she picture of him she'd painted in her mind for all these years was steadily changing. It was odd to learn about the blanks, even if this was an incredibly morbid situation. The thought of Draco Malfoy crowd-surfing, however, seemed like something right out of a comedic hallucination.

"That was before, though," he continued, his voice growing soft. "There wasn't much to celebrate come fourth year."

"How bad was it?" she couldn't help but ask.

"I thought we weren't talking about that," he replied.

It was shocking how quickly the atmosphere had changed. His voice, which had been so light and animated just a few moments prior, had become guarded and soft. Her own walls were sliding into place, but she wanted to know. How bad had it been, really? Their fourth year had been the tipping point, but how bad could it have been at the beginning?

She didn't know, but she wanted to.

"You brought it up," she said.

"I was just thinking out loud."

"Fine."She swallowed, thickly. "You answer my question, and I'll answer anything from the taboo list that you have to ask me."

The silence stretched out between them as he considered her offer, and she fidgeted with her sleeve. In that moment, she cursed her curiosity. This was not a book that she could close if the information became too uncomfortable. If she pushed open this door, it could lead to things that were best left in the dark.

It didn't change anything. She still wanted to know.

"It was… okay at first," he said, finally breaking the silence. His voice was barely a whisper. "Most of us thought it would be good. We'd finally get the change we wanted. Things would be better. It was a cause worth fighting for. How little I knew. The first time he tortured me, I was fourteen. It was just a few days after he came back. The Dark Lord was furious at my father for what had happened with the diary. He wanted to make him suffer. You know what that curse is like. I can promise you that my aunt's curses were a feather compared to what The Dark Lord was capable of."

"I'm sorry," she said, and she meant it. "That must have been—"

"Horrible? It was," he said. "Those were the good days of the war, though. It only got worse as time went on. Serves us right for following a crazed psychopath, I guess."

He fell silent, and she sighed. It would seem that, somehow, the Death Eaters had suffered almost as badly as everyone else had during the war. The thought sickened her. They'd been on the verge of winning for the longest time, and it had been a quirk of fate and more luck that she'd dared try to quantify which had brought Voldemort down.

The sheer idea of a man like that in power, without opposition… it brought bile to her throat.

"Truth," she said.

He'd held up her end of the bargain. It was her turn.

"What are you here for?"

She sighed. He was never going to stop trying to get an answer out of her, and she couldn't imagine having to dodge the question for the next year. _You know what you did. The world knows what you did. Just tell him. Let him know what a monster you are. _The voice in the back of her head nagged at her in a sickeningly sweet tone, and she leaned back against the wall.

The rough stone dug into her back, and for once, she was grateful for the threadbare jumpsuit. Without it, there was no doubt in her mind that she'd have scraped her back raw by now, and in this dank place, the risk of infection was very high. Death was too easy for her, too kind.

Hermione sighed.

"Murder, Malfoy," she said. "I'm here for murder."


	2. Chapter 2

**.**

* * *

**Chapter Two**

* * *

_-Day 26-_

The visitation room was the nicest place in Azkaban.

Sunlight streamed in through the enchanted windows, and everything was dry. It was furnished with nearly three dozen tables and four times as many chairs. There were posters on the walls and a chalkboard near the door, and the large mirror nearly doubled the size of the place. In truth, it was all too easy to forget the horror that was the rest of Azkaban whilst she sat within these four beige walls.

Warden Williams stood in the corner of the room, watching the visitors and inmates with her usual glare. In the month that Hermione had been incarcerated, she didn't think she'd seen the woman crack a smile one. It was a crying shame that the dementors had been banished. If they had remained, they would have found their queen in the grim-faced warden.

Nott was hunched over a nearby table meeting with his son—Hermione vaguely remembered the reedy young man from school, and it was just as hard to picture him crowd-surfing as it was to picture Malfoy. There were others as well, but all her thoughts came to a halt as the visitor's door swung open and Harry Potter walked into the room.

If she hadn't been chained to her chair by her ankle, she would have sprinted across the room to fling herself into his arms. As it was, she was to wait for him to walk to her. It took all of a few seconds, but it felt like forever.

He yanked her into his arms, and tears stung her eyes as she hugged him back. Harry was warm and it was insane how one touch from him was all it took to make her fall apart. It was his cologne, she told herself. Though the scent was a new one, it smelled like home.

"It's good to see you, Harry," she muttered into his ear. "I missed you."

"It hasn't been the same without you either," he replied, patting her on the back before finally breaking their embrace. Pulling up a chair so that he was sitting right beside her, he smiled at her. "How are you holding up? Made any new friends?"

"I'm doing okay," she said. "And I suppose I have?"

"Really?" Harry looked surprised. "In here? Who?"

"Let's just say that he makes a surprisingly bouncy ferret," said Hermione, and in that moment, she wished she had a camera to capture the expression on his face.

"Bloody hell," he said. He gaped like a fish, opening and closing his mouth several times as he tried to find something more to say. Finally, he settled on simply repeating himself. "Bloody hell."

"Bloody hell indeed," she replied. Tears ran down her cheeks as she took him in, smudging the dirt and grime. "You look good. Auror training has been good on you."

Harry grinned before holding up his arms and flexing. Even through the leather jacket, she could see the distinct bulge of muscle. It was odd. He was still surprisingly small-built for a man his age, but she'd felt the difference when she'd hugged him. It didn't change much. When she looked at his eyes, he was still the same boy she knew and loved.

"I have abs as well now," he said, sounding excited. "I could hardly believe it when they started showing up. Been a scrawny bloke for so long that I can hardly recognise myself in the mirror sometimes."

"I'll take your word for it," she said with a fond smile, and then it all came crashing down.

Her heart sank as she looked up at the door, and the sight of it remaining shut was all the confirmation she needed. She looked back at Harry, and his guilty expression was just the icing on the cake.

"Ron isn't coming, is he?" she said. This time, the tears that ran down her cheeks were not caused by joy. She sighed. "He's still mad at me."

"He misses you," said Harry, reaching out to take her hand in his. Giving her a reassuring squeeze, he gave her a wan smile. "He's just… he thinks you're barking mad to have not taken the plea deal that you were offered."

"You know why I couldn't take it," she said, looking him in the eye. "Three months probation and a year of having my wand monitored for what I did? A life sentence would be too good for me."

Harry's face grew cold. He shook his head, and his grip turned painful. Gritting his teeth, he glared into her eyes, and she quailed at the sight. The expression he was wearing was one she knew too well—she'd seen it often during the investigation and the trial.

"You know you did the right thing, Hermione. Bloody hell, if anyone is to blame for this mess, it's Voldemort. He forced your hand in the first place. This wasn't your fault. It was a mercy what you did."

She wanted to cry. They only had a half-hour before he had to leave, and she didn't want to talk about her crimes right now. She just didn't. Hermione closed her eyes. It had been a dark night. They'd been thrashing around without control. There'd been so much pain. The pillow had been so soft in her hands as she'd held it over their faces until they were still.

Harry was right about one thing. It had been a mercy. That didn't mean she didn't deserve to suffer for it.

"Please," she whispered. "Harry, we don't have much time, and then it's going to be a month before I see you again. Can we talk about anything else? Please."

His expression softened, just a little, and there was a deep sadness in his eyes as he nodded. Slowly, he released her hand, and she rubbed at her wrist to soothe the ache he'd left behind. There'd be a bruise there tomorrow, she knew.

"You're looking thin," he said finally. "Have they not been feeding you?"

"I've been eating okay," she replied, thinking of the slop. "I guess prison food just doesn't do a body good."

He squinted at her in disbelief. Opening his mouth as if he wanted to say something, he seemed to think better of it. With a shake of his head, he leaned back in his chair.

"If you're being mistreated in any way," he said. "I want to know. Please don't insult my intelligence with another lie. Have they not been feeding you?"

She sighed. This was going to be a long half-hour. He was just worried about her, she thought. _He shouldn't be. He shouldn't even bother visiting you. _He was her best friend. _He knows what you did. _The voice in her head screamed at her in condemnation, and she swallowed thickly.

It was going to be a long half-hour indeed.

* * *

_-Day 36-_

"I've been wondering," said Malfoy. "How did you get only a year for murder?"

"I thought we'd agreed to only exchange one taboo bit of information?" she asked with a weary sigh. "Not a question and every related follow-up."

"I'm open to sharing a few more horror stories if that's what keeps the story going," he replied. "You had a lot of questions for me during our first week. That curiosity can't have gone far?"

Hermione stretched against the wall, pondering his offer. What would it hurt? Listening to him talk about his demons was as good a distraction as she could think of, and what was the point in trying to keep things quiet. The entire world knew what she had done, and it was only the isolation of Azkaban that kept her fellow inmates in the dark. He was going to find out soon enough, one way or the other.

Maybe it would be easier for her if she just told him what had happened.

"Fine," she said finally. "I only got a year because I wasn't tried for murder. I was tried for the unlawful use of magic on two muggles. I was found guilty by the Wizengamot and sentenced to a year in Azkaban. There. That's the big mystery."

"That answers one question and creates a dozen more." Malfoy snorted. Something rustled in his cell, and she imagined he must be coming closer to the tiny hole. "You said you were in here for murder, not usi—"

"It was a pair of very powerful memory charms that did not work as well as I thought they did," she interrupted. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, and she turned up to stare at the ceiling. Digging her nails into her palm to blunt the pain, she swallowed thickly. The pillow had been soft as sin, and they'd been peaceful when it was over.

It had been a mercy, but that didn't make it not a crime.

She was spared the need to answer further questions when Maslow arrived at the bars of her cell, accompanied by a woman who looked to be about his age. She was dressed in the black robes of an Azkaban guard, but with her plump cheeks and wide blue eyes, she looked extraordinarily out of place beside her leering colleague. A dull clang echoed through the room as Maslow pushed open the bars, and his leer grew as he leaned against the frame.

"Well?" Maslow raised an eyebrow. "What are you waiting for, inmate? Up and at them."

"I don't understand," said Hermione, climbing to her feet. Her jumpsuit was held together by a few loose threads and a prayer, and she folded her arms across her chest to block her exposed bits of skin. "Where am I going?"

"Bath day," called Malfoy from the other cell. "Lucky you."

_Bath day? _They were allowed to be clean? Hermione couldn't deny that she was surprised. It had been so long since she'd been clean that the filth and grime felt like it was a part of her.

"Thank you, inmate." Maslow reached around the wall to tap Malfoy's bars with his baton. "Now shut up." He turned back to Hermione, cocking his head to the side. "This is Auror Sonenclair. She'll be escorting you to the bathhouse."

Hermione forced a smile to her lips, grateful that this kindly-looking woman would be the one overseeing her instead of Maslow. She couldn't put her finger on it, but he unnerved her in a way that sent chills down her spine whenever he leered. His advice had been sound, at least, but the way he looked at her… the way Malfoy said he looked at all the female inmates.

It was not something she wanted to ponder or imagine.

"It's nice to meet you, Auror Sonenclair," she said, following the woman out of her cell.

"Likewise, Miss Granger," said Sonenclair before turning to her colleague. "She'll be back in an hour, Maslow. Go back to your lurking."

"You wound me, sweetheart," he said with a wink. When he walked away, however, it was like a weight had been lifted off Hermione's shoulders.

She followed Sonenclair without a word, not trusting herself to speak. This had to be a dream. If she spoke, she'd wake up, and then it would all be over. The room she was led to was filled with steam and a dozen large tubs. It was warm. After so long in her damp cell, she had forgotten what it not being cold felt like. There were other inmates here as well, all of them women, and she noticed a trio of aurors patrolling the room.

In that moment, Hermione didn't care about modesty. She just wanted to get the filth off her skin. She all but ripped off her jumpsuit before sinking into the nearest tub. The heat seeped into her skin, and she sighed. Merlin, this felt good. There was soap as well—a large green brick of it about the size of her fist—and she yanked it off the dish so quickly that it almost slipped from her fingers.

The water as already turning brown, and she hadn't even begun scrubbing. Merlin… she hadn't realized how dirty she'd gotten during the long weeks in her cell.

As she lathered the soap across her face, someone grabbed her by the hair. Her sharp yelp turned into a gurgle as her head was shoved under, and she spluttered as water filled her mouth and nose. Hermione thrashed, water sloshing over the rim of the tub. _Where are the aurors? _

Fumbling, she grasped the bar of soap and swung out as hard as she could. It connected with something pudgy, and there was a shriek as the hand released her head. As Hermione broke the surface of the water, still clutching her soap, she gasped for breath. Her lungs screamed in relief, and she whipped around in search of her attacker.

Her eyes narrowed. Umbridge was on the ground, naked and clutching the side of her head, and it all clicked. _You tried to kill me. _It hadn't even been the first time. She looked around. Where were the aurors? Out the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Sonenclair looking reading to approach, but there was an arm outstretched to hold her back.

Warden Williams stood there with an almost curious look on her face, and she was stopping the aurors from interfering. _This is a test of hers. _Was it? It made sense. _She wants to see how I'll react. _

A stubby fist caught her in the side of the head, and she reeled. Merlin. In the few seconds it had taken her to get her bearings, Umbridge had gotten back on her feet and was ready to take another swing.

"Welcome to Azkaban, Mudblood." Umbridge's grin was feral.

Something snapped. Jeers and catcalls echoed across the room as Hermione sprang from the tub and flung herself onto Umbridge. The both of them went tumbling to the slick stone floor, but Umbridge was already scrabbling for her throat. She swung out with her block of soap, and there was a dull crack as blood spurted from Umbridge's nose.

"Call me a Mudblood again," she said, pulling back her arm for another swing. "I dare you."

Before she could say anything else, someone had grabbed her around the waist and yanked her away. She kicked out, swinging around with her bar of soap, and Sonenclair yelped as Hermione cracked her across the cheek. _Stop. Calm down. _The small voice in the back of her mind was screaming, and she was aware of so many eyes upon her. Breaking free of the dazed auror, she rushed Umbridge again, dimly noting that the other woman was also in the process of being dragged away.

The stunning spell took her in the chest mid-stride, and she would have hit the ground had two aurors not grabbed her as she fell.

* * *

_-Day 42-_

"Where the devil have you been?" Draco yelled.

Hermione groaned as she stumbled back into her cell, the bars clanging shut behind her. She'd never thought there'd come a time when she was grateful to be back in this hell, or that she'd be happy to hear his voice. Her legs ached as she walked across the cell, steadying herself against the wall to keep from falling to her knees.

"Merlin," she muttered as she finally reached the hole. Sinking back against the wall, she pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. "It's good to hear your voice, Malfoy?"

"Yes, I have the voice of an angel," he snapped. "Where have you been?"

"Solitary," she muttered.

It had been worse than hell. There'd been nobody to talk to. There hadn't even been any aurors making their rounds to give her the illusion of human contact. Her food had been delivered down a narrow chute. She'd been alone with no distractions, lost to her own thoughts and memories, and she couldn't put into words how horrible it had been.

"I'm sorry." His voice was soft and measured. "Feel up to telling me why you were there?"

"Umbridge tried to drown me in the bath house," said Hermione. "I'd forgotten she was here."

"Umbridge tried to drown _you,_ and you were put in solitary?" Hermione could almost hear the raised eyebrow.

"I broke her nose with a bar of soap," Hermione added without inflection. "The Sonenclair tried to break us up, so I accidentally smacked her as well."

"You broke Umbridge's nose?" Draco whistled. "Merlin, Granger, I think you're my new hero."

"The worst part about it," she continued, pretending that she hadn't heard him. "I liked it. I liked how it felt to make her hurt. She's a horrible person, I know, but she's still a person, and I felt good taking out all my anger on her."

She had, and she didn't like this part of herself. It was a feeling she was familiar with, and it was the very worst part of herself, the one she pretended didn't exist. In Azkaban… in solitary, she couldn't hide from it anymore. She couldn't pretend anymore. Not here.

For her entire life, she'd toed a moral grey area, and suddenly, the line just wasn't so grey anymore.

"You're not a bad person for defending yourself, Granger," he replied. "So what if you feel good about getting one over on the people who hurt you? It's never wrong to protect yourself."

_It hasn't always been about me. _No. She didn't want to think about that. The wrong thing for the right reasons. What was it that had been said about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? She had never meant to hurt them. She hadn't. It had been the smartest move to make at the time. There was no other way to keep them safe during the war.

_Who protected them from you, though? _The voice whispered in her mind, and she shuddered. No. She didn't want to go there. Hermione needed a distraction. Clenching her fists until she drew blood, she winced. The sting wasn't good enough anymore. She'd been in solitary for too long.

"Malfoy," she whispered. "Tell me something. Anything. Just take my mind off things. Please."

"Fine," he said without missing a beat, and she could have hugged him if the thought wasn't so morbid. _He understands. He's here as well. He knows what it's like. _ "I also have a bath house tale, if you want to hear it?"

"Go ahead," she replied.

"The first time I went there, I was really excited to just get clean and be given a new jumpsuit. Stupid really. I guess we just took being clean for granted when we could shower twice a day."

"We take a lot of things for granted on the outside," she murmured, more to herself than to him.

"Yeah," he said, and his voice was low and thick. "Anyway. There I was, getting clean, and this man I've known all my life comes up to me. Crabbe's father. He was angry at me for leading Crabbe into the Room of Requirement, you know? When we were hunting you and Potter and Weasley down?"

"What happened in there wasn't your fault, Malfoy," she said.

"I know. Believe me, I know. I warned him that Fiendfyre was not something to be messed with. Crabbe was always an idiot, and that's what got him killed. He was still my friend, though."

He sucked in a deep breath, and she sighed. In that moment, the wall between them didn't seem quite so thick.

"So Crabbe's father comes up to me, and he's changed. I can't recognise him anymore. He's yelling at me. Grabs me by the shoulders and yanks me out of the tub before punching me in the gut. Calls me a traitor for what my mother did for Potter in the Forbidden Forest. Then it got really bad, because he leaned in and told me I was a pretty thing and he asked if I knew what happened to pretty boys in Azkaban. The aurors were watching, but they weren't doing anything. They'd have stood there and watched it happen. I didn't let it get that far."

"What'd you do?" Bile rose in her throat. Sweet Merlin… That was horrifying. Nobody should have to be threatened with that. Nobody should have to endure something like that. Her stomach twisted into a knot.

"I kneed him in the bollocks. Cheap shot, but I'm a skinny bastard and he's basically an ox. Shoved him really hard after that. He slipped and cracked his head open on the side of one of the tubs. I got lucky. I knew I probably wouldn't be as lucky next time. I needed to make a point. So I stood on his throat and watched him choke. They pulled me off him before he could die, but I never got attacked again. I got three weeks of solitary for my troubles."

He fell silent, and she was strangely grateful for his story, no matter how horrifying it had been. As she pondered his experience, letting it play out in her mind, she could barely remember what it was she'd been trying so hard to forget.

* * *

_-Day 58-_

"Harry's getting married," she said, carefully folding the letter and slipping it back into the envelope. Adding it to the growing pile she kept tucked within a rocky recess, she sighed, leaning back into the wall until the stone bit into her back.

"She-Weasel?" asked Malfoy. "Mazel tov, I guess."

"My best friend is getting married, and I had to find out in a letter he wrote to me while I was in Azkaban," she said, not even bothering to correct Malfoy as to his use of nicknames. It never did any good. "They're going to set the date for when I'm free, but…"

"You'd have liked to be there to congratulate him in person," finished Malfoy in a weary voice. "I get it. I missed Theo and Daphne's wedding. Missed Crabbe's funeral. Blaise's mother got married again as well, but I suppose I'll always be there for the next one."

"Nott and Greengrass got married?" asked Hermione. "I thought you said that Greengrass was like a sister to you. Didn't they—"

"Life goes on for everyone else, you know," he interrupted. "Both of them thought it would be tacky if their son was already a year old when they tied the knot. I got named godfather. Haven't seen the kid. Don't know what he looks like outside of pictures. He seems cute enough even though he has his father's rabbit teeth. I'm grateful, but I wish they'd chosen someone who was, you know, better."

There was a sense of sadness and longing in his voice that she didn't hear from him all that often, but she understood. She'd missed a lot as well. Dean's wedding to Parvati had taken place during the time she'd been held at the Ministry, and Luna's farewell party had been during her second week in Azkaban. She swallowed. She'd said her goodbyes before her incarceration, but it hadn't been the same.

She wondered how Luna was doing right now while on apprenticeship with a research team in the Amazon. It was being run by a Scamander, Hermione thought, though she could barely remember the details. Everything before Azkaban felt as though it had been from another life.

Idly, she realized that Draco was still talking.

"— so shotgun wedding aside, it's all good, I suppose."

"Shotgun weddings, huh?" she asked, pretending that she'd been listening the whole time. "Just how many of your friends had those?"

"Well, Daphne and Theo was one, but they've been together since fourth year, so it's not unexpected. Marcus and Tracey got married and divorced in about a month. Erm. Oh, this one is funny. Matthew. You might not know him. He was a few years above us. Anyway, Matthew got married to a halfblood. I think her name was Regina. Well, his father found out and there was nearly a riot downstairs in maximum security."

"Why is that funny?" Hermione wanted to know.

"Avery has been as good as a halfblood line for about a century now," explained Malfoy. "It was hypocrisy at its finest."

Hermione frowned, scratching at her jaw. She supposed that must be vaguely amusing to those who cared about such things, but it didn't really tickle her in any way. Did it even matter? Something clicked, and she inclined her head towards the hole in the wall.

"What do you mean by as good as a halfblood line?" she asked. "The Averys are purebloods, aren't they?"

"Come on, Granger." Malfoy snorted. "It's one of the most poorly kept secrets in our world that the pureblood lines are greatly exaggerated."

"This would be the first that I'm hearing of it," she replied. Her mind whirred. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? It didn't make sense.

"Okay, this is going to get complicated, so brace yourself," he said, and there was an air of glee in his voice that she recognised from their schooling days. It was the same tone he always took when he knew something that the people around him didn't. "Well, once upon a time, there was a pureblood wizard named Charles Potter."

"Harry's great-grandfather. I know. He married a Black, right?"

"Am I telling you the story or are you?" Malfoy sounded a little annoyed.

"Carry on," said Hermione, fighting the urge to laugh at the almost petulant air in his voice.

"Okay, now as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, there was a pureblood wizard named Charles Potter. He would be my great-great-uncle by marriage, I think. Anyway, Charles married a pureblood witch named Doreah Black, who was my mother's grandmother's sister. I think. It gets a bit fuzzy when you go back more than two generations."

Malfoy chuckled, as if amused by a joke that she'd hadn't got.

"We've got two pureblood lines, okay? So Doreah and Charles go on and have a son named Fleamont Potter. Poor guy. Imagine being half-Black and being named Fleamont when there are so many stars to pick from. So we have Fleamont Potter, and he got married to Euphemia _Lestrange."_

If there'd been anything in her mouth, Hermione was quite certain she'd have spat it out in shock. That was brand new information. She bit her lip. Did Harry know? Surely Molly and Arthur would have. Sirius would have definitely have known. Lestrange? Harry had Lestrange blood? She gaped.

"It's not as world-ending as it seems, Granger," said Malfoy, the annoyance clear in his tone. "Weasley and Lovegood have more than a few drops of Lestrange in them. Longbottom's got Lestrange, Carrow, and Crouch if I remember right. That's the ironic part. We spent so much time fighting each other that we never remembered we're all one big unhappy family."

"Yes, Malfoy, I am aware that the purebloods have interbred to the point where you're lucky to not have eleven fingers and a club foot, but…" She trailed off, not wanting to offend him more than she probably already had.

"Don't sound so judgy. It's not like we have a choice in who our ancestors are," he replied. "So, now we've got a Lestrange line, a Potter line, and a Black line, all purebloods, and Fleamont and Euphemia go off and have a son named James Potter."

"Harry's dad," said Hermione. "And Harry's mother was Muggle-born. Is that what you've been getting at?"

"Something like that," said Malfoy. "We've got three Pureblood lines, and suddenly, it's a halfblood line because Potter has muggle grandparents on his mother's side. So he's going to marry She-Weasel, and she's a pureblood. But any children he has are going to be halfblood because muggle-born grandmother. You keeping up? Let's go one generation further. Let's say Potter and She-Weasel have a daughter, and then that daughter marries a pureblood wizard. Any idea what their children will be considered as?"

"Halfblood, obviously," said Hermione, rolling her eyes. She was starting to get a headache. "There's muggle blood in them."

"Pureblood, actually," corrected Malfoy. "The muggle blood is a bit too far back on the tree to count anymore. So, here's a fun exercise. Look at all the pureblood lines that stretch back for centuries if not millennia. You really think there are any of us left with purely unbroken lines?"

Silence reigned through both their cells. There were very few impossibilities in the world that she was completely sure of, but one of them had just being shattered to pieces. If someone had told her a year ago that she'd one day hear Draco Malfoy imply that he had muggle blood in his veins, she'd have thought them mad or drunk or both. She didn't know what to think or feel. It was as though the very foundations of their world had been laid bare, and she was seeing how fragile they truly were for the first time in her life.

"Then why?" She didn't understand. "Why the obsession? How did something so meaningless cause two wars and a genocide?"

"Because we're all liars and hypocrites, Granger." He sounded weary. "Some of us are just a lot better at it than others."

* * *

_-Day 70-_

Warden's Williams office was warmer than Hermione had expected. She had imagined something cold and sterilized, all metal cabinets and a shelf laden with various instruments of torture. The warden was a grim woman who loved to sneer, and it made no sense that her office would look so… comforting.

A fire roared in the hearth, spilling heat and light across the hardwood floors. Furnished in cherry wood and mahogany, the office looked almost intimate and inviting. There were two pictures upon the mantle above the fireplace, and Hermione took a moment to study them. The first was of a man in a dark suit with a severe gaze and an even more severe smile. In the portrait beside the first, a young girl of about five danced across a playpen whilst wearing a tutu over bright pink stockings.

To say that Hermione was surprised to find that the stony warden had a happy family was an understatement.

Collecting herself, she turned back towards the warden and plastered a smile across her face.

"You have a lovely daughter, Warden Williams," she said, hoping to break the ice between them.

"I am aware, inmate," said Williams, not looking up from her paperwork. "You are likely wondering why I've had Maslow bring you here."

"The thought has occurred to me."

"There was an interesting article in the Quibbler this morning," said Williams, her tone without inflection. "A similar story was covered in the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly. I must compliment you. You have friends in all the right places."

The warden reached into her top drawer and pulled out a magazine. Pushing it across the desk, she returned to her paperwork as Hermione glanced at the headline. Her stomach twisted itself into a knot. _Azkaban: Has it truly been cleaned up? _

Hermione swallowed. _Harry. _There was only one person who could have pulled so many strings, and she could only imagine how much trouble he'd stirred up by doing so. Azkaban had been cleaned up after the war, but there was a certain manner of thinking amongst the wizarding community. _Out of sight, out of mind. _It was easier to sweep something under the rug than confront it head on, but Harry had just gone and shoved Azkaban into a spotlight.

It was clear that this was not something which Warden Williams enjoyed.

"Do you think you are above porridge and bread, inmate?" asked Williams. She scrawled her signature across a set of forms before placing them into her outbox. As she opened another file, she dipped her quill into her inkpot. "You have not been experiencing a lack of nutrition, I trust?"

"No," said Hermione cautiously.

"Good. The porridge and gruel that we serve is supplemented by various potions to provide out inmates with all the nutrition they need to remain healthy. The bread is enhanced to provide the caloric intake that a person needs to survive." The warden dipped her quill into her inkpot a second time. "I will admit that it is not the tastiest thing in the world, but what makes you think that a criminal like you deserves something tasty?"

"I didn't tell him anything if that's what you're getting at," said Hermione. "He just noticed I've lost weight and ran with it."

"Interesting," said Williams. Setting down her quill, she looked up with a grim look in her eyes. "Are you saying that I should suspend your visitation privileges?"

"You can," said Hermione. "Harry will wonder what's wrong and he will dig deeper. He has a very active imagination. I think it's best we keep things short and to the point. What is it that you want from me?"

"Very well. Let us do away with the niceties," said Williams. "You have another visitation scheduled for this Friday. I understand that Mister Potter will be visiting you. You will inform him that there is nothing wrong with the way Azbakan is being run. You will sing the most beautiful song about the wonders of these cells. You will assure him that your every basic need is being met. You will do these things, inmate, because you have no right to complain. Not after what you've done to land yourself here."

She glanced at the portrait of her daughter upon the mantle, and her lips curled into a smirk. Rising, the warden strode towards the fireplace. Grasping at a poker, she stirred the flames, kicking up a small storm of embers.

"I could not imagine being cursed by my own daughter," said Williams. "It would be the most awful thing in the world. To forget her. Imagine being a mother, inmate, and not remembering the first Christmas with your only child. The day she was born. Her first word."

"Stop," muttered Hermione, shaking her head. _Why? You know what you did. _She needed to think of something, of anything that would distract her. Hermione clenched her fists until her nails dug deep furrows into her palms. It wasn't enough. _One of Malfoy's stories. Harry's getting married. Ginny must be going spare planning the wedding. _She needed a distraction. She didn't want to remember. She didn't want to drown in her memories.

"I could never imagine it," said Williams, speaking on as if Hermione had never spoken. "My own flesh and blood, hurting me like that, stripping me of something so crucial to who I was. It's unthinkable."

"Stop."

"But that wasn't enough for you, was it, inmate? You did just that to your parents, but you didn't even have the audacity to get the spell right. Tell me, inmate, do you think your parents knew it was you who broke their minds? Surely once the insanity set in and they had to be restrained to keep from hurting themselves, they must have been able to remember."

"I said stop," said Hermione.

Her breath came in ragged pants, and blood slicked across her fingers. _You know what you did. _The pillow had been so soft in her hands. Their eyes had been so filled with pain. They hadn't even been able to recognise her near the end. It had been a mercy. There'd been so much pain in their eyes.

"You are here because you deserve it, inmate. You deserve the _slop _and the filth and the solitude. Do not forget that. By a mere technicality of our laws, you were able to avoid a life sentence for what you did. Remember that. You are dismissed. Sonenclair is waiting outside to take you back to your cell."

Hermione nodded. Her legs were jelly as she stumbled towards the door, and her heart stung as if a shard of glass had been buried there. All the scars and scabs upon her soul were being flayed open, one by one, and she could barely see the door in front of her as the tears fell from her eyes. _Monster. You know what you are. _She swallowed thickly, and her throat felt filled with thorns.

Malfoy had been right. There was a lot worse than him in this place.


	3. Chapter 3

**.**

* * *

**Chapter Three**

* * *

_-Day 96-_

"You ever going to tell me what happened in Williams' office?" asked Malfoy.

"I don't want to talk about it," replied Hermione, her voice small.

Leaning back against the wall, she closed her eyes. The black marks on her soul felt as raw as ever, weeping fresh blood and pus with every breath she took. Talking to Malfoy wasn't enough anymore. The floodgate had burst open in that office, and there was no stopping the waters now. In Azkaban, there was no running, and there was no escape.

"What do you want to talk about then, Granger?" asked Malfoy. "We've barely spoken in days."

"We barely spoke at all before Azkaban," she whispered. "None of it was pleasant either."

"Thank you for the reminder of what a git I used to be," he replied. "Truth be told, I rather enjoy talking to you. It keeps the boredom at bay. I don't like being alone with my thoughts."

She flinched, wondering what would happen when he reached the point of no return. There was no doubt in her mind that he had he was plagued by the same bitter memories that worried her every breath. Hermione had seen him crack already, though the moments when he dropped his guard were few and far between.

Like her, Draco Malfoy didn't like speaking about his secrets, but talking about their favorite bands wasn't good enough to keep the darkness at bay. Not anymore, at least.

"Granger?"

She didn't reply. What was there to say? They could talk until they were blue in the face and it wouldn't change anything. She was a monster and this was where she belonged. In the cold, damp darkness where she'd be forgotten. Harry should stop visiting her. He was far too good a friend for her. Ron clearly had the right idea. She looked down at her palms, shuddering at the mess of half-healed scabs and bloody cuts upon them. It wasn't working anymore. Even if her nails were long and sharp enough to reach bone, it just wasn't enough.

Nothing was ever going to be enough to drive the demons away, not when they had a home in her. She gasped for breath, her chest growing tighter than a vice.

"Granger," barked Malfoy. "Stop."

She froze. His voice had been as sharp as a whip, and it echoed through both their cells. Hermione took a deep, shuddering breath and hugged herself. Had it always been this cold in Azkaban? Why was he helping her? Why was he trying to steady her as she unravelled? _He doesn't know,_ the voice whispered. _He thinks you're worth helping. _

She swallowed thickly. He needed to know. Everyone else already did.

"I killed my parents," she whispered, her voice like broken glass.

A thud reached her ears, followed by a soft groan. He must have fallen over in shock. Something rustled on his side of the wall, and she waited for his reply like a woman with her head fixed within a guillotine. _Curse me. Tell me what an awful person I am. Hate me like I hate myself. _

"Come again?" said Malfoy. "I must have misheard you."

"You didn't mishear," she said, still in that hushed whisper. "I killed my parents, Malfoy. That's why I'm here. That's what I did."

No sooner than the admittance left her lips did the rest come tumbling out in a garbled mess of half-sobbed words and whimpers. She confessed everything, from the spell she'd used to protect her parents to the agony they'd been in towards the end. The pillow had been so soft. She'd pressed it over her father's face first, bawling as he struggled beneath her. It had been a mercy. Everyone, from the Wizengamot to her best friends had agreed that it had been a mercy, but that didn't make it any less a crime.

With a single whispered word, she'd ruined their lives and put them on the path that led to death's door. She'd killed them. She'd murdered them in cold blood with her bare hands. All she'd wanted when she'd cast the spell that stripped them of their memories was for them to forget they had a daughter. They'd have been Wendell and Monica Wilkins, moving to Australia without a care in the world, safe from the war that raged around them.

Safe from the targets put on their backs for having her as a daughter.

By the time she was done, she was lying upon the floor, her eyes stained red with tears. Her body ached from the shuddering sobs that had ripped through her, and he'd been silent through it all. _Good. _He hated her as well now. He'd stop trying to talk to her. Good. She deserved to be alone with her ghosts.

This was her penance, and a life sentence wouldn't be enough to atone for what she'd done.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and his voice sounded choked. "I… I'm sorry. You didn't deserve any of that."

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her throat hurt and her nose was raw from rubbing it. Sniffling, she huddled into herself, drawing her knees to her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs.

"You were right to send them away, though," said Malfoy. "They had targets on their backs. Your house was raided twice during the war. If they'd been there when we came looking, it could have been a lot worse. _He _was very angry at you for helping keep Potter alive. I just… I don't know. I'm sorry, Granger."

"It changes nothing," she murmured.

"No," he agreed. "There's no changing the past, no matter how much we want to. For what it's worth, I think you did the best you could. It was just… a terrible situation where there was no right answer."

"Maybe there would have been if I'd looked for one," she said. "There were options. I could have asked the Order to protect them."

"The Order was on their knees, Granger," Malfoy reminded her. "Do you know how many safe houses we raided during the war? I think Potter's aunt and uncle were moved eight times alone just to keep us getting them. It was war. There was no such thing as safety."

_No, _she thought to herself, _there wasn't, but their blood is still on my hands. _

* * *

_-Day 117-_

"Malfoy," she murmured. "Tell me a story."

A dull creak echoed through the hole as he got out of bed, and the sound of his footsteps was music to her ears. It had been a while since they'd spoken, though not for his lack of trying. He greeted her in the mornings and wished her a good night when it was time for bed, and he'd kept up a constant stream of inane chatter during the last week—had it been a week?—that she would never be able to express her gratitude for.

His chatter had kept her sane in what was quickly becoming the darkest period of her life, even if all he spoke about was the weather, the grime upon his walls, and the state of his hair. It had helped. Merlin, she didn't think she'd ever find the words to express how much it had helped, but it had.

The worst part of Azkaban was the solitude, but with Malfoy in the cell right beside hers, she was never really alone. He was not the company she'd have wished for on the first day of her incarceration. No, Malfoy was quite possibly the last person in the world she'd have wanted to spend her isolation with…but now, she found it difficult to imagine her life with anyone else in the cell next door.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. "You've been crying out in your sleep all week."

"Nightmares," she replied. "I just…can you just give me a distraction, Malfoy?"

Deep down, she knew that she didn't deserve a respite from her pain. This was the torment she deserved, the penance that she'd asked for. There would never be a drop of absolution for her, no matter how hard she tried. But, Merlin above, she craved a break from the memories. She needed it like a moth desired a flame.

The rabbit hole was dark and bottomless, but she was tired of falling. She _needed_ him to take her mind off things, no matter how loudly the voice in her head screamed for her to keep away from him and let her demons in.

"I can do that," he said. "But you're going to have to help me out a bit as well. I think I've been going mad with nobody to talk to but myself."

A shard of guilt wedged itself into her chest, and she shifted uncomfortably as the realization dawned. _She _was his distraction, but she'd never given it a moment's thought. He'd helped her, and he hadn't asked for anything in return. She'd taken and taken, but what had she really given? It wasn't fair.

Malfoy had his demons as well, and some were just as dark as hers. It would be okay, she thought, for them to let their demons dance together, if only so the two of them could find some small measure of temporary peace.

"Truth," said Hermione, taking her space beside the hole with her back to the wall. She could almost hear his smile.

"What's your patronus?" he asked.

She frowned at the question. Would she even be able to cast a patronus? Hermione didn't think so. It had been a very long time since she'd been happy, and almost all her memories were stained with sorrow. She bit her lip. No. This was a distraction, one they both sorely needed, and she couldn't let the pain back in. Not now.

"An otter. What about you?"

"You're going to laugh at me," he replied, sounding uncomfortable. The rustle of his jumpsuit against the wall let her know he was shifting around. It was all the answer she needed.

"It's a ferret, isn't it?" she asked, unable to mask the slight curl of her lips. "Does it bounce?"

"It does." Malfoy groaned. "Do you think I'll ever live it down? Blaise still brings it up whenever he gets the chance."

"Not really," she said. "There haven't been many people in the world that can say they were turned into ferrets by their professor."

"Yeah, that's me." Malfoy sighed. "I'm bloody unique, aren't I?"

"Unique is a good thing," said Hermione. "My turn. What kind of w—"

"No," interjected Malfoy. "It's my turn. I asked about your patronus, and then you asked about mine, so now it's my turn to ask you something."

"No, you asked me if you were bloody unique," she corrected, and this time, there was no mistaking the smile on her face. "Slytherins aren't the only ones who can cheat."

"Touché, Granger." He sounded oddly impressed. "Well then?"

"What kind of wand do you have?"

"Hawthorn with a unicorn hair core, ten inches," he said. "Can't believe that you wasted a question on something you already know. Didn't Potter steal my wand during the war, or did I imagine that whole mess?"

"He did." Hermione could have kicked herself. She'd been right there when Ollivander had inspected the wand. "I'll save you the trouble of asking. My wand was destroyed during the war, but the one I got after is eucalyptus and occamys feather, twelve and a half inches."

"Occamys feather?" Malfoy whistled. "That's certainly exotic."

"I got it in Australia," she said. "After the war, I travelled there in search of my…" She sucked in a breath, swallowing. No. If she thought about Australia, she'd think about finding them in the hospital. No. It was too painful. Think. _His patronus is a ferret. That's funny, right? He likes the Hobgoblins. _The distractions were slipping from her fingers like fine sand, and she could almost smell the ammonia and antiseptic of the muggle psychiatric hospital.

"Who was your first kiss?" he asked, his voice swift and urgent.

"Viktor Krum," she answered without thinking, her breathing returning to normal.

It took her a few more seconds to realize what had happened, but when she did, her eyes widened in surprise. She'd been on the brink of coming undone, and he'd yanked her back. She swallowed. Merlin above, this was madness. Of all the people in the world, _Malfoy_ had been the one to snap her back to reality.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"You're welcome," replied Malfoy, but she didn't miss the surprise in his voice. "Follow-up question because this warrants one. You snogged Viktor Krum? You? How?"

"You sound just like Ron did when he found out," she said with a faint smile ghosting across her lips.

"Me? Sound like the weasel? I beg your pardon, Granger, but I sound nothing like Weasley. I never have and I never shall. I'll have you know that—"

Against all odds, she laughed. Her chest was oddly light, and it made no sense given that she'd been falling to pieces only a few seconds ago. She must be going mad. Was she? Maybe. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. It was good to laugh, though.

Until she'd heard the petulance in his voice, she'd almost forgotten how to.

* * *

_-Day 138-_

"Blimey, Hermione," exclaimed Ron. "You look like shit."

Hermione couldn't help but snort. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Harry had muscles, she was an inmate in Azkaban, and Draco Malfoy liked rock music… but Ron would always have the emotional range of a teaspoon. If she wasn't so exhausted, she was sure that she'd have burst out laughing.

He'd probably think she'd gone mad. She wouldn't blame him. In the quiet moments, Hermione suspected she was losing her mind within these walls as well.

They were the only people in the sun-dappled visitation room, though she'd seen Goyle being escorted out by an auror as she'd been led in by Soneclair. Idly, she wondered who'd want to visit him of all people, and she made up her mind to ask Malfoy about it later.

"Charming, Ron," she said finally. "Almost as charming as you finally coming to visit."

"I needed time," he replied, running a hand through his hair.

"I needed my friend," she retorted.

Ron sighed, his expression sheepish. Hermione bit her lip, wondering if she'd been too harsh on him. Did it really matter? It had been nearly three months or so since her incarceration had begun, and Harry had been her only constant visitor until today. If he hadn't been attending an auror conference in France, she was certain he'd be here today as well. _It's not like you deserve either of them, _whispered the voice in the back of her head.

At the very least, Ron looked well. He'd always been tall, but he must have squeezed out a few more inches of height since she'd last seen him. Freckled and gangly as ever, Ron would likely never grow out of his boyish awkwardness and distinct lack of tact, would he? A wan smile crossed her face. It was nice to know that she could always depend on a few things remaining static in their ever changing world.

"How is the family?" she asked, even though it pained her to think of Molly's warm hugs and Arthur's warmer smiles.

"Mum is doing better than she was. Dad says that she's been sleeping through the night again, and Victoire keeps her going," said Ron with a wan smile. "George reopened the shop a few weeks ago. He and Percy rebuilt the place by hand, can you believe it? Percy doing manual labor? He's changed, you know. Has a girlfriend now and everything."

"That's good to hear," she said, trying to hide the way his words stung at her heart.

It hurt. Life moved on for the people outside these walls, and she was missing so much. The Weasleys were a second family to her, and to not be there for all these special moments was physically painful. She'd have liked to be there for the joke shop's grand reopening, because George would have doubtless made it a grand affair. Victoire had been a few months old when last she'd seen the little girl.

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath to steady herself, and when she opened them, she realized that Ron was still talking as if he hadn't even noticed her crumbling facade.

"—and Fleur's pregnant again. Can you believe it? Victoire's not even a year old and she's got a sibling on the way. Bill is crossing his fingers and hoping for a ginger, but Fleur says that there's no way this one won't be blonde as well. It's the veela blood, I think. Oh, and Teddy's going a mile a minute. Andromeda's going a bit spare, but she's getting a little friendly with her sister again. I'm not sure about the whole thing because Narcissa Malfoy still rubs me the wrong way, but…"

He trailed off, raising an eyebrow at her. "You aren't listening to a word I'm saying, are you?"

"I am," she assured him. "Fleur is pregnant again. Andromeda is reconnecting with her sister. Teddy's as hyperactive as his mother. Got it."

Her voice was dry and listless to her own ears, and she could only imagine how it must sound to him. Visitation was usually something that she looked forward to, and she'd wanted to see him almost as much as she'd wanted to see Harry, but now all she needed was to go back to her cell. With Malfoy as a distraction, it was difficult to remember everything that she was missing, and it was even harder to hear the voice that lived within her mind.

The voice that insisted that this was her penance, and that she deserved all of this and more.

"Is this…" Ron began, looking unsure of himself. He reached out to grasp Hermione by the hand, his eyes flickering as he no doubt felt the grime caked upon her skin. "Is this about what happened with _us_?"

"It isn't," she said softly, returning his grasp. Their fingers linked together, but the gesture was foreign to her. It was a little sad, she thought, when there'd once been a time when their fingers had woven together like two pieces of the same jigsaw.

"Really?" he asked. "Because I'm not proud of how I left things."

"Neither am I," she replied, surprising herself with the brutal honesty in her voice. "But it feels like it was a lifetime ago, to be honest." She sighed, hanging her head. "It would never have worked, not really."

"It could have," he said. "I should have gone with you to Australia. I should have been there to help you when you found your parents."

"I should have listened to you and stayed," she replied, because wouldn't that have been so much easier. There were tears in her eyes, and she blinked them away. "There was nothing but heartbreak waiting for me there and we both know it."

"It wasn't your fault, Hermione," Ron said. "You shouldn't even be here. You did the right thing to try and save them, and it just didn't work, but you never intended to hurt them."

"I still killed them," she whispered. "Maybe you're correct and I did do everything right, but I still killed them. I still cast the spell that broke their minds, and I was still the one who killed them."

"As a mercy," he said. "The right to die with dignity when there is no means of recuperation has been a part of the wizarding world for centuries. The law of mercy. You should not be here."

"Why?" she asked, tears running down her cheeks. Reaching up to cup his cheek, she forced a smile to her face. "Because it's me? We all have to pay the price for our sins in the end, Ron."

* * *

_-Day 146-_

Hermione shivered. It was colder than usual in her cell, and her skin was tingling from the chill. The bed creaked as she rolled over, sweat dripping from her brow. _Merlin, when had it gotten so cold_. Her teeth chattered, and her threadbare jumpsuit did nothing to keep the air's icy caress from wrapping around her.

"Granger, you okay in there?"

She opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out. Her throat was raw as she gasped for breath, and she shuddered. It was so cold. Clenching her eyes shut, she rolled over again, trying to get as comfortable as she could.

The clang of the bars was muted, and she looked up in time to see a blurry silhouette approaching her bed. Weakly, she reached out to push the figure away, but her arms felt as though they'd been filled with lead. Nothing made sense. She'd been fine last night, but the early morning brought with it the cold.

Papery fingers pressed into her face, stretching open her eye as something bright flashed into her vision. The glare was so harsh that she was temporarily blinded, and as panic filled her, she was dimly aware of Malfoy yelling, demanding to be informed of what was going on.

"Do behave, Miss Granger," said a cool voice. The figure turned around. "Maslow, do see that Mister Malfoy is silent before he gives me a headache."

"Eurgh," she groaned in response. A thought sluggishly crept into her mind as she spied the figure's sleeves. Black with green stripes near the end. A dull clang echoed through the air, followed by a sharp yelp and a series of groans. In the cell next to hers, Malfoy fell silent, and Hermione bit back the urge to vomit.

Something stung her in the arm, and she jerked at the rush of heat flooding through her flesh. She yelped, throwing back her head and very nearly shoving the figure away from her. A second later, those papery fingers had closed around her jaw and forced open her lips. Hermione gurgled as a vial was tipped into her mouth. The potion was thick and globby, tasting like chalk and sour milk, and it was all she could do to not retch.

Hermione collapsed against the bed, warmth creeping along her extremities, and her vision began to clear. She bit her lip as the hazy figure became clear. Healer Daniels. He perched on the edge of her bed, surveying her with a level gaze, and she fought the urge to shudder. It was as though he was looking right through her soul.

"Pixie flu," he said, raising an eyebrow in amusement. "You'll be just fine, but I'll have a few additional potions mixed into your porridge to be safe. We simply can't have you dying within these walls."

She nodded, still feeling too weak to speak. Truth be told, Hermione was surprised it had taken her this long to take ill given the state of this place. Hygiene was not something that Azkaban prided itself upon.

"I shall have Sonenclair escort you to the bath house and give you a fresh jumpsuit," he continued. "To remove any lingering dregs of the virus lest it strike again."

Getting to his feet, the healer turned towards the adjacent cell and frowned. His boots clipped the floor as he strode towards the cell, and he paused with one hand upon the rusted bars.

"Do you know why there are no more cats in Azkaban, Miss Granger?" he asked, and his voice was almost clinical as he spoke.

Hermione could only shake her head, her throat still to dry and raw to speak. She had assumed that their first conversation had been a metaphor, that the rats had been the prisoners and the cats had been the dementors, but there was something about Daniels that made her second-guess herself.

"Animals are not affected by dementors," said Healer Daniels. "We went through them at an alarming rate when the dementors ruled Azkaban. The inmates would kill them often. Most of them were mad, you see. When the dementors were removed, however, the strangest thing happened."

He twisted his head to the side, his lips curling into a slight smile.

"The inmates befriended the cats. It was rather surprising. Without the dementors looming over them, most of the inmates weren't half as mad as we believed they were. They even fed them some of their porridge and gruel. Sometimes, we caught the inmates sleeping with the cats curled up beside them. It was a crutch for many of them, the cats, and so we removed them, and now we are drowning in rats because of it."

"You…" Hermione croaked. _You removed the one thing bringing happiness to the inmates, _she finished in her mind, unable to give voice to the ghastly thought. She had known cruelty during the war, but this went so far beyond what she had once thought was the worst thing in the world. It wasn't the vicious cruelty of the war.

This was calculated, and that made it all the worse.

"Personally, I would rather deal with the cats than the rats," he said, reaching up to stroke his beard. "Alas, we cannot always get what we want."

Hermione lay on her rickety bed as the bars clanged shut. She waited until the footsteps had grown faint before rolling onto the floor, groaning as the rough stone bit into her palms and knees. Biting her lip to keep from crying out, she dragged herself across the cell until she reached their little hole in the wall, and she collapsed beside it. Gasping for breath from the exertion, she swallowed to try and wet her throat.

"Malfoy," she croaked. "You okay?"

"Just peachy." He groaned. "Haven't broken anything at least. What's a few new bruises to add to my collection. What about you?"

"Pixie-flu." She winced as she tried to move closer to the hole.

"Nasty." He chuckled, the sound twisting into another groan midway through. "Merlin, Maslow can swing a baton. It hurts when I laugh."

"Can't hurt more than my right hook, can it?" she murmured, and there were black spots dancing in the corners of her vision.

"You'll always be the one who hit me the hardest, Granger," he replied, and even as she began to lose consciousness, she smiled.

* * *

_-Day 182-_

"Granger?"

Hermione turned away from the narrow slit which served as a window, her face stained in seaspray, and she stumbled towards their hole in the wall. Her feet ached, the skin scraped raw from the long days spent pacing her cell, and she sighed as she sank down against the wall. Idly, she glanced at her palms. There were only a few scabs left, and most of the wounds were weeks old if not more.

It was strange. Since her confession, she hadn't felt the need to claw at herself as she once had. It had been a weight off her shoulders, one she hadn't known she'd needed to release until she'd already done so.

"Malfoy," she answered with a wan smile. "You got a story for me?"

"A question actually," he replied, and there was a strange note in his voice. "Do you think I'm a horrible person?"

"No," said Hermione, surprising herself with the speed with which she answered. She hadn't even needed to think about it. "What's brought this on?"

"At the bath house today," he began, still in that strange inflection. "Goyle and Avery were there, talking about what they called the good old days. I didn't want to hear it, but a few of the others were getting in on it. It was… vile, hearing them reminisce as if what we did during the war was something to be proud of."

She opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted her before she could fully say the first word.

"Please don't interrupt me," he said, his voice cracking. "Let me just get it all out."

He swallowed loudly. Something rustled in his cell, and she imagined him pulling his knees to his chin, just like she did when her demons danced around her.

"I bathed as quickly as I could, because I wanted to get out of there before I'd say something that would get the shit beaten out of me or worse. I don't even think I got my jumpsuit fully on before I was heading for the door, and that's when Runcorn asked if I've gone soft. A few others started chiming in with war stories. Told me I'm just the same as they are."

His breathing was ragged, and she was almost certain that there were angry tears in his eyes.

"They're right," he said, his voice so low it was barely a whisper. "I did horrible things during the war. Things that even I can't forgive myself for."

"You were under duress," she said, thinking of the word that was thrown around so often during his trial.

"Duress." He snorted. "It's a funny word, isn't it? The implication that you're forced to do horrible things because someone forced you to do it. Granger, you're supposed to be the brightest witch of our generation, so maybe you can figure this out better than I can. If someone gives you a vial of poison and tells you to pour it into someone's mead, does that make you a murderer when you do it? Doesn't matter that if you don't, your mother's going to die a painful death. Doesn't matter that if you don't, you're going to be given to Greyback to do with as he pleases. All that matters is that you've poured that vial of poison into that mead, and that someone's going to die because of it."

"It does matter," she murmured. "Because it's the difference between being a horrible person and being a misguided person doing a horrible thing."

"Misguided? Is that what I am?"

"It's what you were," she replied. "I… Malfoy, can I tell you a story?"

Without waiting for him to reply, she glanced down at the scabs upon her palms. As the memories came rushing in, her fingers closed with a will of their own, and her nails ghosted across her skin. Swallowing thickly, she stopped herself, her hands trembling. _Do it,_ the voice whispered in her head. _You deserve the pain. _

This wasn't about her, though. This was about helping someone who'd helped her more than she'd thought she'd deserved.

"My mother had a tattoo," she began. Her eyes filled with tears as that sentence alone, and she looked up at the ceiling as they trickled down her filthy cheeks. "On her back, between her shoulder blades. It was a butterfly. She once told me that she got it after a really rough time in her life, before she met my father. I asked her why. It just didn't seem like something she'd get, but she smiled and said that there's a lot of pages in every book of life that are better left unpublished."

"Sounds like a smart woman," murmured Malfoy. "At least you can say you come by your brains honestly."

"She wasn't just smart," continued Hermione, ignoring his little jibe. "She was wise as well. In a perfect world, she'd have well become the muggle version of Professor McGonagall, I think." _In a world where I hadn't killed her. In a world where I hadn't cursed her, where I hadn't broken her mind. _

Hermione wanted nothing more than to clench her fists until the blood ran down her arms, but the memory of her mother's face stopped her in her tracks. It was the first time since everything had happened that she'd let in a good memory. She'd been fourteen years old, and they'd been sitting in the kitchen, waiting for her father to get home from a medical conference. Her mother had been wearing that blue blouse that hung off one shoulder, exposing her tattoo, and the kitchen had smelled of brownies.

Hermione remembered sitting at the counter with a cup of cocoa and a book—though it had been so long that she couldn't quite remember the title. She'd turned around and seen the tattoo, and she'd asked her mother for the meaning. Her mother had chuckled before pulling up a stool, and they'd sat there for Merlin knew how long, talking until the brownies burned.

Her nails dug into her skin with the faintest pressure, and she stopped herself at the last moment. It was like her mother was right there, kneeling in front of her with that same warm smile on her face. Hermione could almost smell the burning brownies as the illusion of her mother shook her head, reaching out to grasp her clenched fists and gently pry them open.

"Granger, you okay?" Malfoy's soft voice shattered the illusion.

Hermione's chest heaved as she opened her unbloodied hands, because there was nobody there, and it was nothing but a memory. She'd done a horrible thing. The pillow had been so soft. In those final hours, her mother hadn't recognised anything other than the pain. It had been a mercy.

But her mother would never want her to hurt herself, no matter what it was she'd done.

"I'm okay," she whispered. "Just… got lost in memories."

"It's okay if you don't want to finish," he replied. "I can't even imagine how ha—"

"No. I'll finish. It's important." She steeled herself, and her mother's smile was burned across her mind. Her eyes hurt from crying, but they also showed no sign of stopping in the near future. "My mother got her butterfly tattoo after a very dark time in her life, and she said it's because a butterfly is God's proof that we can have a second life, a better life."

The silence that followed was broken only by her sobs and Malfoy's breathing, but she couldn't bring herself to force the pain away with a distraction. This story, this memory… it made her remember that there was so much more than she had pushed away along with the pain.

There was love and laughter in her memories. There was her mother who had been an impossibly bad baker but had never stopped trying, and her father who had stayed up with her in the living room watching movies until the early hours of the next day. Pain… pain was something that happened when you cared. To try and separate them was impossible, and trying to do so had been agony.

As it all came crashing down around her, she wondered what her parents would say if they could see her now. They wouldn't even be angry, would they? They wouldn't hate her in the way that she hated herself.

All they'd ever done was love her, and she'd paid them back in ways that could never be forgiven, but… she stared down at the scabs upon her palms. She had to do better. They'd want her to do better.

A second life, she thought, a better life. One where she could try to be a better daughter to the parents she had killed.

"Do you know what I take from that story, Granger?" asked Malfoy, finally breaking the silence and rousing her from her thoughts.

"No, I do not," she replied.

"That I'm not the only one who deserves a second chance."


	4. Chapter 4

**.**

* * *

**Chapter Four**

* * *

_-Day 199-_

Hermione hummed under her breath, trying to pass the time until Malfoy returned to his cell. It was visitation day for him, and his mother was here. Idly, she wondered what Narcissa Malfoy was truly like. The woman she had known in passing was a haughty aristocrat, all classic elegance and disdain. The woman that Malfoy often described, though, was a warmer and more likeable person altogether.

He was Narcissa's son, however, and Hermione was never sure whether his words were tinged with bias or if what he said was a true reflection of whom his mother really was. Maybe it was both. There were often two sides to every person: the one they chose to show the world, and the one that was laid bare when all the doors were locked.

She sighed. In Azkaban, there was no need for deception and grandiose facades. Within these harsh walls, they would never last within the solitude. There was no running, and there was no escape. Thoughtful, she leaned back against the wall and furrowed her brow. It was intrinsically shocking that the first person to see her true face was Draco Malfoy. With shocking clarity, it came to her that she had not just shared her worst mistakes with her one-time nemesis...she had laid bare her vulnerabilities and exposed her every imperfection.

There were no secrets in Azkaban. In this fortress rising from the North Sea, there was no escaping who you truly were, and all the sins that you'd committed.

She couldn't quite put a finger into their strange bond. Perhaps it was simply because the shadows had a home within him as well. It may well be that sorrow and regret had built matching apartments within their hearts, that they were both just fundamentally broken in such a way that they couldn't help but find a friend in the other.

Hermione snorted. She'd been alone with nobody to talk to other than Malfoy for far too long, she realized, and it was beginning to cloud her rationale. Merlin, she needed a book or a movie… something that wasn't another of his stories. They were the only distraction she had, the only thing that could take her mind off the pain which so often spilled across her heart.

He was vulnerable with her as well, she reasoned, in a way that she'd never expected from him. Like as not, they'd become friends within this hopeless place. He'd helped her in ways she could never quite put into words, and she could only wish that she'd done the same for him.

_We both deserve to be here, _she thought, _for our sins. _And, as the voice spoke within her mind, another answered, softed and tinged with warmth. _Butterflies, Hermione. They're God's proof that you can have a second life, a better life. _Without meaning to, her lips curled into the ghost of a smile, and tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the empty cell. "I'll never be able to say how sorry I am."

There was no reply, and she suppressed the bitter laughter than threatened to spill from her lips. What had she expected? Absolution from the parents she had murdered, whose minds she had shattered beyond repair? Forgiveness? That was the worst part.

In her heart of hearts, Hermione knew that her parents would forgive her anything, even this. They'd never hate her like she hated herself. No, their judgement was not what she feared. It was her own. The world would forgive her for her crimes, but it would never be enough.

Not when she couldn't forgive herself.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she returned to her hum. The tune was a painful one, a particular favourite of her father's. _Mama, take this badge from me. _ He'd had it on cassette, and no drive had ever been complete without him playing it at least once. She'd heard it so often that the words had been ingrained into her bones. _I can't use it anymore. _

She waited for the pain to come, that sharp blade between her ribs that stabbed at the slightest memory of her parents, but it never came. In its place was a creeping numbness, carrying with it just the faintest throb within her chest. Hermione swallowed. It would seem that she had no more tears left to cry.

A sharp clang echoed through her cell, and she looked up at the sound of footsteps. By now, the sound of Malfoy's gait was as familiar as the back of her hand, and she couldn't keep the smile from her face as she heard him sink down on the other side of the wall.

"Hey, I know that song," said Malfoy, his voice seeming to light up. "They'd play it on Wizarding Wireless sometimes."

"It's a muggle song, Malfoy," she said. "You probably just recognise the tune from something else."

"No," he insisted. "_Knock-knock-knockin' on heaven's door_. Bob Dylan, right?"

She raised an eyebrow in surprise. How in the world? It made no sense. Unlike muggle books, which she could well believe he'd read, and his strange liking of rock music, this was completely out of left field. In her surprise, she must have made an incredulous sound of some sort, because he huffed from his cell.

"If you must know, Wizarding Wireless has something they call muggle hour at nine every night. I'd sometimes listen when I didn't feel like reading. A song's a bit like a book, you know."

"Doesn't matter who's singing. What's important is whether the song's worth listening to, is that it?" She tried and failed to mask her smile.

"Pretty much," he replied with a sigh. "I think it's kind of funny, you know?"

"What is?" she asked.

"People like me," he replied. "We… well, we treated muggles like dirt. We scorn them and insult them, and we behaved like they were a lesser species, but we still read their books and listened to their songs and admired their paintings. It's just… funny, you know?"

"More like sad." She shook her head. "It's sad and hypocritical."

"Pathetic really."

"Quite stupid, I'd say."

"All these years fighting each other," said Malfoy, his voice stained with a strange mixture of sadness and amusement. "When we're all more alike than we'd care to admit."

* * *

_-Day 217-_

"Truth," he said, tapping his fingers against the wall in a steady rhythm.

"How many scars do you have?" she asked. Idly, she ran her fingers along her arm, tracing the jagged letters beneath the filth. The cuts left by Bellatrix's knife had long since healed, and the scars upon her palms had grown almost as faint.

They would never truly fade. Like the black marks on her soul, her scars were a part of her, and they would be there until the day she died.

"That's a taboo question," he pointed out, his voice softer than a whisper. Without waiting for her to reply, he continued. "I have a very faint scar on my left arm courtesy of a hippogriff I once insulted. It's barely noticeable unless you look for it."

Hermione knew about that particular scar, having been there when Buckbeak had broken Malfoy's arm. It had happened so long ago that it may as well have been from a different lifetime. As simple an answer as it had been, it was a start.

"There's a scar on my palm," she said, choosing to answer simple with simple. "I must have been sixteen, and I was helping my mother chop vegetables for dinner. The knife slipped. I needed six stitches."

"There's one on my right ankle," he murmured. "I slipped off my broomstick in second year."

"There are burn marks on my chest," she said. "I got those from Dolohov at the Department of Mysteries."

"Claw marks on the left side of my chest." Malfoy's breathing was ragged as he spoke. "I have Greyback to blame for those."

"A gash on my shin and a cut on the back of my neck," she whispered. "From Scabior."

"Nine scars along my chest and stomach," he said, the words starting to sound choked. "Potter's _sectumsempra._"

"The word _mudblood_ carved into my arm," she murmured, and the strangled sound he made in response was all the answer she'd needed to the unasked question.

"Whip lashes across the back of my thighs," he said finally. "Bellatrix as well."

He gasped for breath, and the steady rhythm of his tapping grew frenzied. Malfoy whimpered, the sound followed by a series of muffled whines, and fabric ripped. Whirling, Hermione pressed her eye to the hole in the wall. It was too small to see much, but she could just make out his jerking body upon the floor of his cell. He'd ripped open a sleeve, and blood ran down his arm from where his nails had raked him. As quickly as the glimpse had come, it was gone, replaced by his painfully slender waist as he writhed across the harsh stone.

"Malfoy," she yelled. "Snap out of it."

He howled, jerking forward. There was a dull crack as his head slammed into the wall, and she winced as a single frenzied grey-eye came into view. Panic all but dripped from his gaze as he stared at her, blood trickling through his lashes, and his terrified breathing was like fingernails against a chalkboard.

"Malfoy," she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "Breathe. Just breathe. I'm here."

Her words barely seemed to have an effect, and he jerked again. Something metal screeched across the floor, and it killed her that she couldn't see what was happening, that she couldn't reach him to pin him down and stop him hurting himself. It was his bed frame, she realized, hearing the screech a second time. He must be flinging himself against it. _It's rusted iron. It'll be scraping him raw. No. _

"Draco!"

His name escaped her lips without her meaning to say it, and it was as though a switch had been flipped. The noises stopped, save for the frantic beating of her heart, and she swallowed thickly as he came back into view. She could barely make out more than a ripped sleeve as he sank beside down beside the cell.

"You actually know my first name," he muttered weakly. "Wow."

If she wasn't so worried about him, and if there hadn't been a wall between them, she'd have kicked him for joking at a time like this. Steadying herself as best she could, she tried and failed to get a good look at him through the hole. It was barely large enough for her fist, and it narrowed about halfway through before widening again.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Never been better." He groaned. "I'm just… I'm just damaged, Granger. Talking about the war… Remembering all the scars and how I got them… It's not the first time I've lost it. I'm sorry I worried you."

She hated the almost casual tone in his voice as he spoke about his episode, because it bespoke a harsher truth altogether. He was used to snapping, but she hadn't seen him break like that before. It must have been before, during his long stretches of isolation. She glanced down at the scars upon her palms.

He was no more damaged than she was.

"I've never seen you break like that," she whispered.

"I've had you to distract me," he muttered. "It's easier to cope when I'm just...I don't know, talking to you about wanting a cheeseburger or how much I'd love a book right now. Merlin, I'm probably not making any sense right now. Just forget it."

"You're making perfect sense, Malfoy," she said. Something fluttered within her chest at his words, something she couldn't quite place. "I'd never had survived this long without you keeping me going."

"Like it's hell but at least there's company?"

"Something like that," she replied. "It's funny. It really is. I hated you for so long, from the first day we met, in fact. You were a scrawny, arrogant, prejudiced git with too much gel in your bloody hair."

"I was easy to hate." The sound he made was strange, half a choked laugh and half a strangled sob. "Too easy."

"You did," she agreed. There was no sugarcoating it. "The funny thing, though, is that I never once though, not once in all those years of hating each other, that you'd one day be this important to me, Malfoy."

It was true. A year ago, she'd have thought herself mad for just thinking what she'd said aloud, but today? Malfoy had been her support in this desolation, and he'd made her laugh on her darkest days. He was a friend, someone she'd grown to care about in almost the same way she cared about Ron and Harry, and now that she'd admitted that to herself, there was no pretending that this was anything other than friendship.

Had there ever been a pair of lost and damaged souls as mismatched as the two of them? Hermione didn't think so.

He sighed. "We back to Malfoy, huh?"

"What? Malfoy, I just gave you an entire speech ab—"

"I know." There was a swallowing sound from the other side of the wall. Finally, after what felt like forever, he admitted, "You're important to me as well. I just… nah, it's stupid."

A wan smile on her lips, Hermione turned away from the hole to rest her back against the wall. He was far more transparent that he'd like to think he was, she thought to herself. For a moment, she imagined what it would be like to clasp his hand as she reassured him, and it surprised her that the mental image did not repulse her as it once would have. The voice whispered its condemnations inside her head, and for the first time in forever, Hermione didn't hear the words. The pain was still there, bubbling beneath the surface.

It would always be there. She would regret what she had done for the rest of her life. It just… didn't feel as crushing as it once had, as agonising as it could have been. She glanced down at her palms, and the pale white scars that were already fading into her skin.

"Draco," she said, her voice soft and tinged with warmth that she'd forgotten she had. "My friends don't call me Granger. It's Hermione."

* * *

_-Day 242-_

Sunlight dappled the visitation room, and for what was the first time since her incarceration had begun, Hermione noticed that the room was almost full. Near the window, Nott conversed with his son in hushed tones, a photo album left open between them. When she craned her neck, she could just make out the pictures of a little boy who couldn't have been older than two.

Nearby, Bulstrode was listening to his wife and daughter with rapt attention, and Parkinson was there as well, admiring a ring upon his daughter's finger. It was odd, in a way, to see the Death Eaters with their families. It made them seem so human, so much like… well, like Draco. Idly, she wondered how many of the inmates of this prison had been like her newfound friend.

Too many, she decided. Too many.

She fidgeted with the hem of her sleeves, tugging at the loose strands of cotton. It should not be taking Harry and Ron this long to get through security, and she was beginning to worry that something had gone wrong. They were definitely here, or else Maslow would not have escorted her to the visitation room, but she had been waiting for what must have been fifteen minutes.

Could it be Williams? The grim-faced warden was watching the visitors and inmates from her usual spot in the corner of the room, but there'd been nothing out of the ordinary in her expression when she'd met Hermione's eyes. It didn't make sense for her to do anything either. Hermione had been completely cooperative in keeping Harry from prying into the horrors of this place, much to his chagrin and her relief.

Just as she was beginning to think that something had indeed gone very wrong, the door swung open to reveal a very tired looking Harry. Dressed in a denim jacket and jeans, he loped across the room with a weary smile on his face before all but collapsing in the chair next to hers.

"Sorry," he said, stifling a yawn. "Between work and planning a wedding, I don't think I've slept a full night all week."

"Is wedding planning that bad?" asked Hermione, unable to hide her amusement. "I would have thought Ginny had the entire thing planned out by the time she was six."

"She did." Harry groaned before turning to Hermione with a glint of mischief in his eyes. Putting on a poor imitation of his fiancée's voice, he added, "Harry, what colour do you think we should have for the napkins? Ivory, cream, or eggshell? And the overlays, Harry. I'm thinking crimson, but perhaps we could use scarlet? Harry, are you listening to me?"

Hermione burst into laughter, clasping at her sides as she doubled over. If that was what wedding planning was like, then she was almost grateful that she was currently serving time in Azkaban rather than having to help Ginny. It felt strange to laugh so giddily. She had nearly forgotten what it sounded like.

Tears streamed from her face as she steadied herself against Harry's knees, and her laughter turned into a fit of coughs. Her chest tightened as it passed, and almost as soon as she recovered, she caught Harry's eye and began laughing again. Her jaw hurt, and there was a stitch in her side, but she simply couldn't stop herself.

She hadn't laughed this hard in over a year, and for the first time since the war, her smile reached her eyes.

"Blimey Hermione," said Harry, clapping her on the shoulder. "It wasn't that funny."

Pushing the hair out of her face as she straightened up in her chair, she smiled at him. _It was that funny. _It was more than just _funny_ to her. It was a piece of who she'd been before the world had gone to hell.

"So what colour did you end up picking?" she asked. "Eggshell, ivory, or cream?"

"White," he deadpanned. "I don't care. They're all white, and giving them funny names doesn't change that they're bloody white."

She chuckled, and there was a companionable pause as they let what had just happened sink in. For her part, Hermione still couldn't believe that she had laughed like that. It was almost as though someone had reached down deep within her and pried open the parts of her that she'd thought lost.

It had been good to laugh. It had been better to truly feel amusement, even for a flicker of a moment.

"Do you know what the best part of today has been?" asked Harry, rousing her from her thoughts.

"Choosing scarlet over crimson?"

"I'll thump you," he warned, though his eyes were light, and there was no mistaking the mirth in his voice. "No, the best part was hearing you laugh like that."

His face grew solemn as he reached out to take her hands in his, the dirt smudging across his palms as he held them.

"I thought I'd lost you," he confessed. "We all did. You've been so… no you for so long. Today was the first time I saw a glimpse of the old Hermione in a very long time. It's just… it's a weight off my shoulders knowing you're healing."

Hermione sighed. She wasn't better. Not really. This was just one of the good days, wasn't it? If anything, she had simply learned to cope better, to keep the memories from consuming her whenever her mind was idle. The pain was still there. It would always be there.

She'd just learned to not let it control her, and she hadn't done it on her own.

"If you want to thank anyone for that laugh," she said, matching his solemn tone with one of her own. "Thank Draco Malfoy."

"Malfoy?" Harry looked as if he'd just been clubbed over the head. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out, and Hermione resisted the urge to giggle at his reaction.

"He saved me, Harry, or maybe it's better to say that we saved each other," she said. "What was it that Dumbledore always said? Happiness can be found in even the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on a light."

Harry raised an eyebrow, his skepticism clear, and she leaned in to close the distance between them. He had to understand. The long months she'd spent in here would have been impossible had Draco not been there to numb the pain. It was strange. It was madness to her own ears.

It was the truth.

"You've always trusted me, Harry," she whispered. "So trust me one more time when I say that Draco's done more for me in Azkaban than I can ever put into words."

* * *

_-Day 288-_

It was never warm in Azkaban. The chill of the place seemed to come from the walls itself, clinging to every stagnant puddle and mildewed corner, and Hermione shivered as she sank down against the hole in the wall. Bath time was something of a cruel and unusual punishment, she'd grown to realize. It was lovely to be clean after spending an entire month caked in grime, but the hot water was fleeting.

Every bath in Azkaban carried with it the reminder that the cold was just around the corner. It was emotional torment at its finest, she thought to herself. Bathing was a comfort, a luxury in this hell, but all it did was remind her of the life that existed outside these walls. A life in which she did not have to yearn for a monthly bath, in which her bed was warm and thick with blankets, in which her food was more than a bowl of slop.

This was her penance, though, her punishment for her sins, and she had no choice but to see it through. There couldn't be many days left. It was hard to keep count within Azkaban, when the weeks seemed to blend together until they lasted for years.

"You smell nice," muttered Draco. "New soap in the bath house?"

"You smell horrible," she countered, wrinkling her nose. It was another downside of bath day. When she was as filthy as he was, she didn't even notice the stench… but when she was clean and her nose was clear… Merlin, did it reek. "How long until they let you get clean?"

"A week," he replied with a sigh. "But that doesn't answer my question."

"The answer to that is no," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "It's still the green bricks that I beat Umbridge with."

"Still can't believe you did that."

"She tried to drown me."

"I didn't say she didn't deserve it."

Hermione giggled. _Happiness in the darkest of places indeed. _She wondered what the people she'd known in her old life would make her of her now. Would they recognise the person she'd become? The girl who laughed and cried in equal measure, who spent her nights tossing and turning at the bitter memories she couldn't repress once she closed her eyes, who was friends with Draco Malfoy.

Would they look at her and see the Hermione they knew, or was that Hermione dead and buried? She didn't know. Most days, it was hard to tell. On others, it was harder still.

"Hey, Hermione?" Draco called, breaking her from her thoughts. "What would you have done in a world where the war never happened?"

"Where'd that come from?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. It was an odd change of subject, and it was one she had rarely dwelled on. It was painful. In a world without a war, her parents would still be alive. She would never have done what she did to try and keep them safe. She'd have never…

"Breathe, Hermione," he said, and she caught herself at the last moment.

He must have noticed her breathing, she thought. How ragged it had become as she'd tethered upon the edge, and he's acted without needing a second thought. How many times had it been now that he'd pulled her back from the brink? She'd lost count. Hermione could, however, recall each and every time she'd pulled him back with perfect clarity, and a part of her wondered if he could say the same for her.

"Thanks," she said. She cupped her face with her hands, balancing her elbows on her knees as she pondered his question. A world without a war? Could something like that even be possible? She didn't think so. Sooner or later, something would tip over. There'd been too much animosity on both sides for it to just go away.

"I know I wouldn't be in Azkaban," he said. "Right about now, I'd be finishing my healer training or else starting my internship at St. Mungo's."

"You wanted to be a healer?" She raised an eyebrow. "Hate to say it, Draco, but your bedside manner could have used work."

"I'm aware," he drawled. "I just thought… it would be a bit cool to be a healer. I remember asking Snape about it during career's counselling. He was just as surprised as you are. I had my paperwork and everything ready to go, and then… well, you know what happened next."

"I wanted a career in law enforcement," she said. "Not auror. I'd have liked to work for legal and work my way up. Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement always had a ring to it for me when I was in school. I can't do that now."

"What do yo—"

"Can't work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement when you have a criminal record like mine, Draco," she said softly. "It's a bridge I burned when I…" she trailed off, not wanting to go into again. He knew what she was referring to without needing a reminder.

"They'd have been lucky to have you," said Draco. "So what else was part of the plan?"

"The plan?"

"The plan, Hermione," he said, sounding exasperated. "Everyone has a plan. Mine was to be a healer by twenty-three, to get married by twenty-five to a pureblood witch who I could stand being around, and have my kids by thirty so I wouldn't be too old when they needed me running after them."

_Wow. _Hermione didn't know whether to laugh or pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Of course he'd phrase something like marriage in such a way. After what he'd told her about the pureblood families, it made so little sense that something like that would be so important to someone like him, but his words echoed in her head. Liars and hypocrites indeed, she thought.

"Kids?" she asked, choosing to hone in on the one part of his _plan_ that she could talk about without snorting. "As in more than one?"

"It's lonely being an only child," he replied, and truth be told, Hermione completely agreed.

* * *

_-Day 301-_

It was late, and she couldn't sleep.

Drifting across her cell, Hermione came to sit beside the little hole in the wall that had been her only solace in this hell, and she rested her brow against the rough stone. In the cell beside hers, she could hear Draco toss and turn as he slept, his bed creaking with every movement. He mumbled in his sleep, and she struggled to hear the words.

"Don't." His breathing was ragged. "Please. I'll do it. Just don't hurt her."

The bed creaked, and his mumbling grew garbled. He hissed in his sleep, and Hermione wanted nothing more than to push her way through the wall to comfort him as he'd comforted her for all these long nights. A gasp echoed through the night, and there was a dull thump, followed by a groan. He must have fallen out of bed in his nightmarish terror.

"Draco," she called, taking care to keep her voice soft to avoid waking any of the other prisoners on their floor. "Just breathe. It was just a nightmare."

"I know," he mumbled. The sound of rustling fabric filled her ears as he crawled towards the hole, and he sighed as he settled down beside it. "It's okay."

"They've been getting worse, haven't they?" she asked, pursing her lips. "You haven't fallen out of bed because of your twisting in months."

"It's nothing."

"It's clearly something," she whispered. Understanding had dawned a few days ago, but she'd been waiting for him to bring it up. It wasn't her place to broach the topic first, not when it concerned him more than it did her. "Tell me. Please."

He sighed, and for a moment, she thought that he wouldn't say anything. If he kept silent, she'd start the conversation. Being able to talk about the elephant in the room would definitely be a lot better than simply trying to ignore it. She'd learned that the hard way, and it'd been him who'd helped her.

Now it was her turn to be the reassuring one in their strange friendship, to give instead of take.

"I'm going to be here when you're gone," he whispered, his voice sounding torn from his throat. "I… it's stupid. I was alone here before you got put in your cell."

"You played tic-tac-toe with yourself," she said, unable to bite her tongue.

"I'm scared to be lonely again, Hermione," he said, continuing as if he hadn't heard her attempt at levity. "Do you know what it's like to be alone with just your thoughts for company? It's awful. There's nobody to talk to. There's nothing to do. It's like every day is a day in solitary. I just don't want to have to go through that again. I just don't."

Hermione didn't know what to say. Every reassuring speech she'd thought off for exactly this conversation had flickered out of her mind as if it had never been there, banished by the sheer despair in his voice. She'd never heard him sound so defeated, even during his panic attacks. She swallowed thickly.

She had never been alone because of _him_, not even during her darkest hours, but he was going to be alone _again_ because of her. There was nothing she could say that could make that better.

It hurt like a punch to the gut.

"When you're alone, your mind plays tricks on you. You hear things that aren't there. You remember things. When I'm alone, I hear _him_ again. I feel my mark burning even when I know that it can't, dammit, because _he's _dead. I hear all of them. Begging for mercy or cursing my name or both."

"Draco…"

"Just… don't say anything." He whimpered. "Don't give me false hope."

"How about this?" she asked, thinking quickly. "What's the first thing you're going to do when you get out of here?"

"Hermione, I don't th—"

"That's not the answer I'm looking for."

"Fine." He sounded agitated, and that was enough for her. Anything was better than the tone of utter hopelessness. "When I get out of here, I'm going to get myself a cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate milkshake."

"A cheeseburger?" she asked, a ghost of a smile crossing her face. It was perhaps the last thing she'd expected to hear from him in this moment, but it was just so very Draco that something fluttered in her chest.

"You seen the slop they give us in here?" There it was—the flicker of amusement in his voice, barely there, but still painfully present. "I need proper food. Not just any cheeseburger, mind you. There's a cafe in Diagon Alley, just past Gringotts."

"_Delicatesso_," she said, remembering the little hole-in-the-wall cafe tucked between an apothecary and a quidditch supply shop.

"You know it? Merlin, they have the best cheese-burgers in the world. It's got onions and tomatoes and mushrooms and lettuce and even some of those little pickles, and it's so big you can't even bite into it without messing up your face. My mother used to take me there now and then when I was a kid. It was just our secret. Father disapproved of the place, but we loved it."

Her stomach growled. It did sound good. It sounded like the best thing in the world.

"And the fries?" she asked.

"Golden on the outside, all nice and crispy, but so soft in the middle. Salted just right and served with this special sauce they made. And the milkshakes. Merlin above, Hermione, you'll never believe how good their milkshakes are."

"Here's what we're going to do, then," she said. "I'm going to wait for you to get out of here, okay? And then we're going to go to Delicatesso, and the cheeseburgers are going to be on me, you got that?"

"It's a date," he murmured, his voice thick with an emotion she couldn't quite place.

"A date?" It was her turn to be surprised.

"What else do you call it when someone offers to buy you lunch?"

"I don't know." She shrugged, and that little something fluttered just a little faster inside her chest. "Lunch?"

"Funny, Hermione," he replied, "And thank you for giving me something to look forward to."


	5. Chapter 5

**.**

* * *

**Chapter Five**

* * *

_-Day 318-_

The strangest thing about her odd friendship with Draco Malfoy was that even after spending almost a year with him as her only company, she had no idea what he looked like. Perhaps that was an overstatement. Hermione knew the basics: grey eyes and white-blond hair, sharp features and a lanky physique. What she didn't know was what he looked like _now. _

He must have changed. Merlin above knew that her own appearance had seen better days. Hermione was well aware that she'd never been a perfect beauty, but she was quite certain she must look like absolute hell after all these months in the dark. She'd lost weight that she couldn't afford to lose, to the point that she could feel her ribs jutting out through her skin whenever she ran a hand along her chest. Her hair was a tangle that no brush could ever tame, and she was strangely grateful for the lack of mirrors in this place.

She tried to reconcile the Malfoy she knew with the Draco he'd become, and she failed miserably. Try as she might, she just couldn't picture how much he'd changed.

For as long as she'd known Draco, he'd been impeccably well groomed. When others wore jeans and a t-shirt, he was usually seen in a dark suit. His hair had been combed until there wasn't so much as a strand out of place, and when his features weren't screwed up in distaste, they were usually set into an almost impassive mask. His words were always an arrogant drawl, and he certainly didn't talk about listening to muggle music on the radio at night.

The Draco Malfoy in the cell beside hers was not the same boy she'd known in Hogwarts, but then again, she wasn't the Hermione Granger he had once known either.

She was roused from her reverie by the sound of him twisting upon his rickety bed. He mumbled in his troubled sleep, a blend of pleas and begging, and she clenched her fists at the sound. Her time was almost up, and she didn't want to think about how bad it was going to get for him once she was gone. Maybe she was overestimating her own importance, but she'd like to think that he was as dependent on her as she was on him after all these months in Azkaban.

There was a thump, and she winced. He'd fallen out of bed again. Sure enough, he was sitting on his end of their hole a few moments later, his breathing strained as he fought to catch his breath.

"Hermione?" he called, his voice low. "Are you awake?"

"I am," she replied. "Bad dream?"

"Nightmare," he said. "Sorry if I woke you."

"I wasn't asleep," said Hermione. Pulling her knees up to her chin, she wrapped her arms around her legs. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"It's not a good memory," he muttered. "It's… you were in it."

Hermione blinked. There were a great many bad memories between the two of them, but there could only be one that truly unsettled them both. She swallowed thickly, dragging her fingers upon the scarred word upon her arm. The chandelier had sparkled with a hundred lights as they knife had dug into her flesh, and Bellatrix had licked the shell of her ear. A shiver ran down her spine.

He'd been there, standing beside the door with terrified expression on his face. He'd watched as she'd been tortured, his skin so blanched of colour that he'd have easily passed for a ghost.

"The drawing room," she murmured.

"I hated you, you know?" His voice was strained, his breathing labored. "I'd just… I'd just known you for seven years. Even through the hate, I knew it was wrong. Nobody deserved _that. _Nobody. You weren't even the first person I'd seen Bellatrix torment. It was just."

"It stays with you," she murmured. "Like a stain you can't scrub away."

"What was any of it for?" he asked, and she didn't know if he was talking to her or to himself. "Why? So many people dead, so many families ripped apart, so many people scarred for life… what was any of it for?"

"I don't know," she replied. "An ideology? Fanaticism? Racism? Prejudice? There's a dozen answers, really, but none of them justify a goddamn thing."

"All I want now is to sleep through the night without dreaming," he said. "I can't. Even with you here, keeping my mind from straying, I can still remember."

"You're damaged," she replied, and there was no point in sugarcoating the truth. "I'm damaged. We're two incredibly damaged people who lived through hell before we were even twenty-years-old. Hell, you're still nineteen, Draco. I'm twenty and I feel fifty after everything I've seen and done."

The things she'd done. It was an interesting way to put it, she thought. Hermione sucked in a breath as the memories flooded in. The pillow had been so soft. They'd been in so much pain. They hadn't even known who she was towards the end. It was the sin she'd carry to her grave, the pain she'd never be free from. And, then, through the haze of pain and misery, a gentle voice whispering in her ear.

_Butterflies, Hermione, _her mother whispered. _Proof you can have a second life, a better life. _

"The past can't be changed, Draco," she whispered. "But just look at how different the future is already."

He sighed, shifting against the wall. Despite the gloom, he began to tap a steady rhythm upon the floor, but she didn't recognise the tune. It was comforting, though. As if her body had taken on a mind of its own, she began to hum along to the beat.

"You really think so?" he asked.

"My dad used to tell me that when you're falling, it's always best to hit the bottom," she said, her heart thudding at the bitter reminder. "Because once you're there, the only way to go is up."

Draco didn't answer. He continued to tap out the rhythm to the song without words, and she leaned back against the wall, content to simply hum along.

* * *

_-Day 364-_

Hermione dragged her feet as she made her way back to her cell from the warden's office. The papers of her release had been signed, and she would be leaving in the morning. It was a painful thought. Azkaban was her prison and her penance, but it was also where she'd found _him. _It was the place where she'd laid bare her soul and let her demons dance with his, and he'd been there through it all, numbing her with his voice and stories.

The worst part of Azkaban was the solitude, but the best part of Azkaban was that she'd found him in the dark. Draco was damaged. She knew that. He'd been broken by the war just as she had, but they'd both shattered in such a way that their broken pieces fit together perfectly.

Like a macabre puzzle, of sorts.

"Pick up the pace, Miss Granger," said Sonenclair. "I don't have all day."

Hermione barely noticed her. Lost in her thoughts, she drifted down the corridor towards her cell. Her bare feet scraped along the rough stone, drawing flood from the half-healed cuts, but she didn't feel those either.

"Hermione?"

She froze, jolting back to reality at the sound of his voice. Turning towards the bars, she swallowed at the realization that she'd been so lost in her haze that she'd walked right past her own cell. For the first time since his trial, she saw him.

Draco was a lanky mess of matted white-blond hair and filth, his face smudged with dirt and dried blood. His grey eyes were ringed in bruises, and he was so slender that she was afraid a light breeze might break him in half.

Sonenclair barked something at her, but she didn't hear the auror. Her body moved as if it had a will of its own, and she stepped close to the bars of his cell. He approached her, walking with the slightest limp, and she reached out to grasp the rusted iron between her trembling fingers.

"You look horrible," he murmured, resting his brow against the bars. "Still got that bushy mane, I see."

"You look worse," she replied. He was taller than she remembered. "At least there's no gel in your hair."

"I grew out of that in our second year," he replied, a hint of a smile playing across his lips.

A hand closed upon her shoulder, and she was dimly aware of Sonenclair trying to pull her away. Hermione barely budged. In that moment, she may as well have been made of marble.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," she said.

"I know."

Something fluttered within her chest, like the wings of a butterfly, and she rose up on the tips of her toes. His eyes widened, but by then, she was kissing him. His skinny arm snaked out through the bars to wrap around her head, his fingers tangling in her hair, and he returned her kiss with an almost feverish zeal. Draco's lips were as dry and cracked as her own, smeared with dust and grime, but it was perhaps the sweetest kiss she'd ever had.

Soneclair jerked her away, and Hermione gasped as their kiss was forcefully broken. She looked up at him as she was dragged back to her cell, and in that moment, all she wanted was to kiss him again. It was madness, but it was their madness, a strange medley of broken strings playing the most beautiful melody in the world.

* * *

_-Day 365-_

Hermione almost wept at the sight of her old clothes as she climbed out of the bath, setting down the green brick of soap for what was hopefully the last time in her life. She stared at the starched cotton underwear for a few moments before remembering what to do with them, and she fumbled with the clasp of her bra. It had been too long since she'd worn anything other than a threadbare jumpsuit.

Her hands trembled as she pulled on her jeans, wincing at how loose they were upon her waist. If she stood, they'd fall to her ankles. The sweater came next, and the softness of the wool was like heaven after the long months of threadbare cotton. In the end, she had no choice but to knot the end of her sweater into the belt-loops of her jeans to keep them from falling, and she was barefoot as she made her way out of the bath house.

The floors of Azkaban were rough stone, and they'd covered her feet in scabs and blisters. Trying to pull on sneakers was an effort in painful futility.

Sonenclair followed close behind her, not saying a word, and Hermione kept her gaze fixed right ahead to keep from looking back. Merlin, she wanted to. He was still there, alone in his cell, and there was nothing she could do. Idly, she'd wondered if punching one of the guards would be enough to extend her sentence, but he'd talked her out of that idea before it had ever become a definite possibility.

Hermione swallowed thickly. She didn't want to go, not yet, not without _him. _He'd saved her, and she'd saved him, and now she was leaving him to suffer in the dark. It wasn't right. It just wasn't.

"Hermione!"

She barely had a moment to take in the source of the yell before she was nearly bowled over by a whirlwind of red hair and freckles. Ginny embraced her with all the warmth of a sister, and it took her a few moments before she realized she needed to return the hug. It had been too long, and she'd forgotten what it felt like to be hugged like this by someone who wasn't Harry.

"Merlin, Harry said you'd lost weight, but I never expected… I can feel your bones." Ginny gasped, her voice becoming an eerie impression of her mother's. "We're going to need to get some food in you."

"Let her breathe, Ginny," said Harry. Hands stuffed into his pockets and wearing an easy smile, he glanced up at Hermione. "Kingsley thought it would be technically okay if an auror trainee and his fianceé were the ones to pick you up rather than Savage and Proudfoot."

"Did Kingsley think or did you insist?" asked Hermione, delicately prying herself free from Ginny's embrace.

"I may have put the idea in his head." Harry smiled, and his stubble scratched her cheeks as he yanked her into a bone-breaking hug. "It's good to have you back, Hermione."

"Ribs, Harry," she wheezed.

She felt fragile as her friends led her out of the prison and towards the lone dock. A boat was waiting for them, no larger than a dingy, and the salt spray was all too familiar as it splashed across her face. Their hugs had hurt, and not in an emotional way. It was not that they didn't know their own strength or had been overcome, but simply, it was that she had grown weak within her cell.

Climbing into the boat, she huddled down as the cold washed over her. The winds were strong, but the sea was oddly calm as the dingy set sail. Once they left the perimeter, it would begin to rage once more, she knew. It was a powerful spell, and she would one day dearly love to meet the wizard who had cast it.

"You're going to be staying with us," said Ginny, patting her on the knee. "We have plenty of room and it's already been settled. I've done up one of the guest rooms and—"

"I'm going home, Ginny," she murmured, turning back towards the prison. It rose from the rocky crag, grim and foreboding even as she drifted away from its shadow, and there were hundreds of slits along the walls. She wondered which of those had been her window. If she found it, she'd be able to find the cell next to hers as well.

Would he be watching her go?

"Hermione, that might not be the best idea right away," said Harry. "Your house isn't going anywhere, and it'll be good for you to have us around for a bit until you get yourself settled."

"I'm going home, Harry," she murmured, shaking her head.

Home was not Harry's apartment in Kensington, and it wasn't The Burrow. It wasn't Ron's flat in Diagon and it wasn't even Hogwarts. Home was a three bedroom house in Heathgate with glass doors and a small garden. It was the kitchen in which her mother had baked brownies and the living room in which she'd fallen asleep watching television into the early hours of the morning with her father. It was the small balcony attached to her parent's bedroom where her mother had read, and the picnic table in the backyard where they'd had so many dinners.

She still owned the house, having made sure her parents didn't sell it before they'd moved to Australia under the influence of her memory charm. She hadn't wanted to risk the lives of the new buyers should the Death Eaters come knocking at her address, and it was likely that nobody had lived there in years.

It was home, though, and she wanted to go there. She'd be alone there.

"At least spend one night with us before going there, Hermione," said Ginny, shaking her head. "The place must be packed with dust. We can all go out tomorrow and make it habitable."

Hermione twitched. They were making sense, and she didn't want to listen. She turned, seeing the determined looks on their faces, and she sighed. This was an argument she wasn't going to win. Tiredly, she nodded before turning back to the prison, hoping against hope that this time, she'd be able to recognise the window of _his _cell.

* * *

_-Day 366-_

Hermione woke with a jolt, her heart racing.

The sheets were tangled around her, and the pillows were lying upon the floor. She took a deep breath, the rocky walls in her mind fading away to reveal the comfortable guest room in Harry's apartment. It was a nice enough room, she thought, with cedar wood furniture and baby-blue walls, but it was unfamiliar.

Too unfamiliar, in fact.

Rubbing her arms, she sat back in bed. Her brow was slicked with sweat despite the wintry air billowing in through the open window, and she was exhausted. Her nightmare had been terrible, though, and she didn't dare go back to sleep. Almost desperately, she scanned the walls for a tiny hole, and of course there was none.

Wrapping a blanket around her like a shawl, she climbed out of bed and stumbled towards the nearest wall. There was a sunken electrical outlet there, and in the dim light of early morning, it was enough. Shivering, she pulled the blanket tighter.

"Draco," she murmured into the socket, knowing full-well how mad this must look to anyone who heard her. "Are you awake?"

There was no answer. Of course there was no answer. She hadn't expected there to be one in the first place, not with him a million miles away, but she felt oddly disappointed all the same. Merlin, it hurt to be away from him. There'd been nights in Azkaban where just listening to him breathe in the cell beside hers had been enough to lull her back to sleep after a terrible dream.

"Is that why you don't want to stay here?" asked a warm, almost matronly voice, and Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Ginny." She clutched a hand to her chest and took a deep breath to steady her thudding heart. "You startled me."

"I can see," said Ginny. She walked across the bedroom, clad in a dressing gown. Sinking down beside Hermione, she graced her with a wan smile.

Hermione didn't respond, opting instead to cuddle closer into herself, wrapping her blanket around herself as tightly as she could. She must look childish, she thought.

"Harry is a very heavy sleeper, you know," continued Ginny, leaning back against the wall and staring up at the ceiling. "I grew up with six brothers, two of whom were Fred and George. You always had to sleep with one eye open unless you wanted to wake up with an ink moustache and pink hair."

"You heard me," muttered Hermione. She turned away. There was no use hiding it, not when she could see that perceptive look in Ginny's eyes.

"It was hard not to hear you thrashing about in your sleep," replied Ginny. "You sounded like you were at war with a troll."

"If you think I'm bad, you should see Draco," said Hermione, the words spilling forth before she had a chance to think. "His night terrors are so bad that he falls out of bed most nights."

As soon as the words left her lips, she flushed. That was not her secret to share, and she felt a pang of guilt in her chest for giving away something like that. Swallowing thickly, she fidgeted with the label on the blanket. She had no right to share his demons with others, and she needed to watch her words.

This was not Azkaban. Here, secrets mattered.

"I don't need to imagine what that must be like," said Ginny with a sad look. "I once tried waking up Harry when he was having a bad dream, and he very nearly punched me in the face before realizing what he was doing. He wakes up with fresh bruises at least once a week because of my kicking and squirming. The war left its mark on all of us."

Hermione closed her eyes. She'd been trapped in the dark with Draco for so long that she'd almost forgotten that they were not the only people with scars. Merlin. Draco was still there with nobody to comfort him if he woke from a night terror. The thought made her feel guilty to have Ginny here with her. She clenched her fists, taking care to not let her nails dig into her palms.

She should still be there. She should have punched a guard or… or something, just so that he wouldn't be alone with his ghosts and demons. It wasn't fair.

_Hermione, _whispered the voice in the back of her mind, and she was certain that she had finally gone mad, because it sounded just like him. _Breathe. _

She could have wept as her chest lightened, the tension almost melting of her shoulders. He was a million miles away and still bringing her back from the brink.

"Does it ever get better, Ginny?" she asked, finally breaking the silence. "I feel… I feel as if it's all been on pause in Azkaban, but the world's turned while I've been gone and left me right where I always was. I just… it was easier with him around."

"Him?" Ginny looked very much like her mother when she had that thoughtful look in her eyes. "I can't say it goes away. I can just say that from experience, it gets easier to deal, you know? I have my family to lean on and I have Harry, and it does get easier with time. And I think I can safely say that you've found someone to lean on."

"We both did," Hermione murmured. "You don't know how awful it is in there, Ginny. You're never clean, not really, because you're covered in muck within an hour of taking a bath. The food… we called it slop for a reason. The worst part is the solitude. You're alone. There's nobody to talk to. All your ghosts come out to play and your sins come back to haunt you. I'd have gone mad if he hadn't been there."

Ginny shook her head and wrapped a companionable arm around Hermione's shoulders. It was comforting, Hermione thought, but she still felt the memories prickling in the corners of her mind. Her friends: Harry, Ginny, Ron, the Weasleys… all of them were comforting and trying their best to help her.

It just wasn't the same as the voice on the other side of a tiny hole in the walls of Azkaban.

* * *

_-Day 390-_

Her childhood home dripped with nostalgia and memories of a happier life, but Hermione inhabited it with all the presence of a ghost. She'd scrubbed clean the living room, the kitchen, one of the bathrooms, and her old bedroom, but she hadn't had the strength to do much more. Most of the house still looked like nobody had lived there for years, with white sheets over the furniture and dust caked upon the floors.

For the first time in her life, the solitude was comforting.

Outside the walls of this house, the world was moving too quickly for her comfort. Harry and Ginny were getting married in a few months time, and wedding planning had all but taken over their apartment. Ron was moving on with his life, having taken up a very unusual romance with a fellow auror. Bill and Fleur had two daughters keeping them busy, and even Percy had recently tied the knot and was expecting his first child. George had reopened his shop, and he was always going a mile-a-minute. Neville was training at Hogwarts to be the next herbology professor, and Luna was still on her research trip with the Scamander Foundation.

It was as though the world had turned and left her there, and she couldn't help but feel overwhelmed whenever she left the house.

There was a knock on the door, and she rose from the armchair she'd turned into her reading nook. Keeping a firm grasp on her wand, she peered through the peephole and smiled before opening the door. No sooner than it had swung open had Missus Weasley yanked her into a bone-breaking bug.

"Hello Molly," she said, "How are you?"

"I'm doing well," replied Molly, finally breaking the hug. Pulling away, she shook her head and wagged a stern finger in Hermione's direction. "You on the other hand. You don't visit half as often as you should."

"Come in," said Hermione, moving aside to allow the older woman entry. Letting the door slip shut after Molly entered, she took a deep breath to steady herself. It still felt odd to be around other people.

"I've brought blueberry muffins," said Molly, holding up a basket. "I'll just put them down in the kitchen, and we can catch up."

Hermione nodded before following Molly to the kitchen, and as the basket of muffins was set down upon the counters, she turned on the kettle. She could have likely heated the water in a thrice with her wand, but it was oddly therapeutic to do things in the muggle way. It kept her mind and hands busy, keeping her from being idle for too long.

"Are you sure you're okay on your own?" asked Molly, looking around at the bare kitchen. "There's plenty of room in the Burrow if Harry and Ginny's place is too crowded right now. Why don't you come over and spend a few days with Arthur and I? We worry about you."

"I'm fine, Molly," she replied, though it meant the world that the offer had been made. "It's… good to be on my own. It helps me take things at my own pace."

"You don't need to be on your own, Hermione. We're all here for you," said Molly with a sad shake of her head. "I can't pretend to understand what it was like for you in there, but I'm always here if you need a shoulder."

Hermione nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Inadvertently, Molly had touched on the one thing that made it so difficult to be around anyone. They didn't know what it was like in Azkaban. They hadn't experienced the filth and the silence and the gloom. It was true that each and every one of them wore scars, but some wounds ran a lot deeper than others all the same.

The morning passed in comfortable conversation and tea, and Hermione found herself wanting to cry at the taste of an actual muffin in her mouth. It tasted good, and she ate it as though she was a child, spilling crumbs across the entire counter. Her stomach would be angry at her later, but it was worth it all the same.

After so many weeks of slop, it was taking her longer than she'd like to start eating wholesome foods, and her first dinner back had resulted in her spending several hours hunched over a toilet. She hoped Molly wouldn't snoop through her closets. If the matronly woman saw that all she owned was muesli and dried fruit, Hermione would find herself receiving home-cooked meals three times a day that she wouldn't be able to swallow without being sick.

Hermione sighed. She should be grateful for the muesli. Draco was still in Azkaban, still living on the slop. Idly, she wondered what would happen when they had their cheeseburgers. It would make him ill, no doubt, but she wondered if she'd be well enough to keep it down by then.

It wouldn't be long now. Just three more months.

It was well past lunchtime when Molly finally left, and Hermione sighed before closing the door behind her. The visit had been exhausting, even if she wouldn't have changed a thing for the world. Her stomach rumbling from the muffin, she wandered up to her bedroom. It was a quaint room of lilac walls, furnished with white woods, and decorated with cream.

She crossed the room, pausing to pick up her CD-player from the dresser. Settling down on the window-seat, she pushed the ear-buds into her ears and pressed play. _Everytime that I look in the mirror_… She closed her eyes, the familiar lyrics playing in her ears. She really should see if she could find a copy of something by the Hobgoblins. What had his favourite song been again?

_Anthem of the Damned,_ she remembered with a wan smile. _How fitting. _

Breathing a heavy sigh, she reached for her book and opened it to the page she'd marked. The Lord of the Rings. What had he said to her? A story is a story. It doesn't matter who wrote it, it just matters if it's worth reading. Her smile grew at the sound of his voice in her ear, somehow louder than the lyrics. He'd said the same thing about music, now that she thought about it.

Merlin above, she missed him, that broken boy in the cell beside hers who'd shattered in the same way that she had, whose broken pieces fit with hers like the most perfect puzzle in the world.

* * *

_-Day 412-_

It was a cool, wintry afternoon, and Hermione paced her back porch. The garden was overgrown with weeds, and the flowerbeds were in disarray. She needed to do something about them. Her mother would be beside herself if she saw what had become of her prized tulips and begonias.

There was a lot to that needed to be done. Hermione was quite sure that a family of rabbits had moved into the garage, but she refused to enter that place. It was too painful. Her parents' cars were gone, but her father's motorcycle was still in there. Memories of him fidgeting with it every Saturday clouded her mind. It had been a hunk of scrap when he'd picked it up, and her mother had been furious.

With work and time and love, the hunk of scrap metal had become a beautiful vehicle, and she could remember the first time her father had taken her for a ride with perfect clarity. She'd learned to ride it in the summer of her sixth year, even if it had just been a secret shared by her father and herself.

She needed to get a job as well, even though she knew she could go on for at least another year with just the money in her Gringott's vault. It would be something to keep her busy, and Merlin above knew that she couldn't simply reread the books in her bedroom for the rest of time.

Someone rapped upon her front door. Hugging herself, she reached for her wand and headed to answer it, the knocking only growing more fervent with every passing moment. It was a harsh, determined sound, and she frowned. Most of the people who popped by her house knew to just knock once and wait for her.

Yanking open the door, she froze. Her eyes narrowed at the blonde woman standing on her porch in an emerald-green jacket, her bejeweled spectacles glinting in the sunlight. Manicured nails clicking together as an acid-green quill floated beside her head, Rita Skeeter smirked down at her with a knowing glint in her beetle-like eyes.

"What do you want?" asked Hermione through gritted teeth. Of all the people in the world, this was likely the worst person in the world that she had ever wanted to see again.

"I just wanted to chat, darling," chirped Rita. Her quill scribbled something in the notebook floating beside her head, and she glanced at the words with a smirk. "May I come in."

Not waiting for an answer, Rita tried to push her way into the house, but Hermione didn't budge. Planting her feet into the carpet, she braced herself against the door to block the woman's path. Her eyes narrowed to slits, she shoved out a hand, and Rita squawked as she was pushed back out onto the porch.

"No," said Hermione. "You may _not _come in."

"But, darling," Rita chirped, a flicker of anger passing across her eyes at being pushed. "There's so much to discuss. The wizarding world is just dying to hear your side of the story. You've been the talk of the town since your release."

"I wouldn't know." Hermione moved to close the door. "I don't get out much."

"Of course." Rita smirked as she wedged a high-heeled foot into the door, preventing Hermione from slamming it shut in her face. "That terrible business with your parents. I'm sure the shame eats you up, doesn't it?"

Something sparked inside Hermione, and she ground her teeth together. Her fingers tightened around her wand until her knuckles were white, and she shoved at the door. Rita winced but didn't move, and her notepad floated so that Hermione was able to make out what had been written there.

_Hermione Jean Granger, war heroine, greets me warmly in her Hampstead home over a warm cup of tea. Tears fill the young lady's eyes as she discusses her parents. "I cry about them at night," she says to me, the tears dripping into her tea. _

Something inside her snapped, and Hermione yanked open the door. Rita squawked as the pressure moved off her foot, nearly throwing her off balance, but before she could react, Hermione had her wand pressed into the journalist's throat.

"Do you want to know about Azkaban, Rita?" asked Hermione, her voice low and her eyes glinting with rage. "Do you?"

Rita gulped, making to back away, but Hermione walked with her, keeping her wand right where it was. It dug into the woman's throat, moving only when Rita took a breath.

"Dolores Umbridge tried to mess with me while I was there. Do you remember her?" Hermione's lips curled into the faintest smile. "I broke her nose with a bar of soap. Imagine, Rita, just for a moment, imagine what I can do with a wand. If I see one word written about me… anywhere… I promise that you'll find out the hard way."

Rita Skeeter gulped before turning tail and fleeing. Her heels clicked down the driveway as she all but ran towards the street, and a low whistle sounded from the side of the porch. Hermione's eyes widened as she turned, having not realized someone had turned up during her stand-off with the journalist, and her cheeks burned hot when she saw Harry leaning against the wall.

"You broke Umbridge's nose and this is the first I'm hearing about it?" asked Harry, raising an eyebrow.

"How long have you been there?" asked Hermione, glancing at the silvery cloak of invisibility bundled in his hands.

"Not long," he said. "Just after Rita, actually. Slipped under the cloak because I figured I'd let you handle her."

"Why?"

He could have easily spared her from losing her temper and very nearly jinxing Rita into the deepest pit in hell, but he hadn't. It didn't make sense. Since she'd been released, everyone around her had treated her as though she was fragile and in need of help, wanting her to come live with them so they could take care of her. It was like they'd been determined to wrap her in bubble-wrap and keep her cocooned.

"Figured you'd like to do it yourself and burn off some stress," he replied with an easy smile. "It was good to see the old Hermione fire for a bit."

Something warm blossomed in her chest at Harry's words. He'd trusted her to do it on her own. She nodded, a faint smile on her face as she leaned against the balustrade. _The old Hermione fire. _It was another part of her that she'd almost forgotten she had. God bless Harry, because her best friend somehow always knew what to do when it came to her.

"So what brings you here when you should be picking out centrepieces for the wedding?"

"I'm leaving all of that to Ginny and Molly. The only thing I really want a say in is the menu and the bar." Harry rolled his eyes, though he spoke with a fond inflection. "I, well, I didn't want to get your hopes up so I didn't tell you before, because I wasn't sure if it would work, but I decided to use all the clout I have these days to get you an early Christmat present."

"Harry, Christmas is nine months away," she said, not understanding what he was getting at.

"Granted, it took a bit longer than I expected to get all the signatures I needed from the Wizengamot," he said, speaking on as if she hadn't interrupted, "But the early release papers are currently being signed by Kingsley, and Robards has dispatched Savage and Proudfoot to escort the newly freed—"

"No." She shook her head, her jaw dropping open in shock. Something fluttered against her heart like the wings of a furious butterfly, and she shook her head again. No. He was joking. He hadn't. "You… You…"

"Pulled some strings that you refused to let me pull for you," he said with a smile. "Thank him for me, will you. Malfoy, that is. He's a git, but anyone who means so much to you is a good person in my book."

Hermione flung herself into her best friend's arms. He chuckled as she squeezed him, nestling her head into the nape of his neck, and she realized she was crying again. For the first time in a long time, though, the tears were forged from joy rather than sorrow.


	6. Chapter 6

**.**

* * *

**Chapter Six**

* * *

_-Day 413-_

It was a cool, wintry afternoon, and Hermione Granger wore a wan smile upon her face as she made her way down Diagon Alley. Her jeans were loose around her waist, and she'd needed to poke a new hole into her belt just so that she could stand up without risking exposing her skinny legs and knickers to the world. Her sweater hung from her, bunching up in places that it had once hugged, but at least she was able to wear her sneakers again.

The rough floors of Azkaban had covered her feet in scabs and blisters, and trying to wear sneakers or boots was an effort in painful futility.

People stared as she passed them by, whispering amongst themselves, but she kept her gaze fixed firmly ahead. It was a rare thing for her to show herself in public these days, opting instead to spend most of her time haunting her childhood home like the ghost she'd become. Today was different. Hermione had an appointment to keep, and she refused to be late. Her life was in tatters, and it would take months to pick up the pieces, but all of that didn't matter now.

She'd made a promise, and there was nothing in the world that mattered more.

_Delicatesso _was crowded, but she spied his distinct white-blond hair as soon as she entered the café. For a single moment, the floor seemed to shift beneath her feet. This was real. He was here. They both were here. Hermione pinched herself to make sure this wasn't a dream. When the scene didn't dissolve and she didn't wake, she pinched herself just a little harder.

Finally convinced, she allowed a tremulous smile to spread across her face. This was real. He was free.

He'd claimed a corner booth, well away from most of the patrons, and he kept his head bowed low. A pang ran through her—the stares and whispers which plagued her would be all the worse for him, and it occurred to her how difficult it must be for him to be out in public when his name was worth less than mud to the community.

It didn't matter. He was here. He'd remembered their date.

Crossing the café, she tapped him lightly on the shoulder before sinking into the seat across from him. He looked up with a smile, his dragon-leather jacket looking far too big for him, and there it was again… that little flutter within her chest, like butterflies flying around her heart.

"You came," said Draco, his smile turning into a grin. It lit up his face, making the bruised circles beneath his eyes seem almost invisible. "You really came."

"I wouldn't miss this for the world," she replied, and if it was possible, his grin grew even wider.

He opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by a young waitress. The girl came up to the table with a warm smile, her gaze flickering from Draco to Hermione and back again, and if she was apprehensive of his reputation—of either of their reputations—then she didn't show it.

"Hey," said the waitress. "My name is Sabina. I'll be your waitress this morning. We have a specia—"

"I'm sorry to interrupt," said Hermione, shaking her head. "We just want two cheeseburgers with a side of fries, and a chocolate milkshake each."

"Deluxe cheeseburgers," corrected Draco, "The ones with all the fixings."

"Suit yourself," said Sabina airily, jotting it down in on her little notepad. "Should be fifteen minutes, give or take. Flag me down if you need anything." With that, she took off to her next table, and within moments Hermione heard her rattling off the special she'd no doubt have learned by heart.

Turning back to Draco, Hermione raised an eyebrow. "All the fixings, Draco? I still can't eat half of what I did before Azkaban without getting sick, and I've been out four months."

"I can imagine." Draco groaned. "Mother had my favorite lunch waiting for me when I got home, and my stomach's been twisting ever since. I made a promise, though. First thing we do when we're both out, remember."

"How is your mother?" she asked. Merlin, there was so much that she wanted to ask him that she felt as though she might explode. It took all her strength not to burst into an interrogation, and she had to remind herself that he'd tell her in his own time.

"Beside herself to have me back," said Draco, a fond smile on his lips. "She about crushed my bones when I turned up at the front door. Can you believe she actually thought I'd escaped Azkaban for a moment? She just couldn't believe I'd been let out early."

He seemed to sober at his closing words, his glee dimming just a little. Reaching out, he clasped her hand between his fingers. It was strange, she thought, to be finally able to touch him. To hear his words without a wall being in between them. To be able to see him as he spoke.

It was a perfect kind of strange, though, and that was all that mattered to her.

"I'm never going to be able to thank Potter enough for that," he said. "I'm never going to be able to thank you enough either. Don't look at me like that. We both know he'd never jump through so many hoops for me. Just… thank you, Hermione. I don't think I'd have lasted another week in that cell."

Hermione squeezed his hand. She didn't want to even imagine how awful it must have been. It had been terrible enough for her, but she'd had him to keep the madness at bay.

"Actually, Harry asked me to thank you on his behalf," she said. "I think he did do it for you, as a thank you for helping me through it all when he couldn't."

"You're a lot stronger than I am, Hermione," said Draco with a shake of his head. "You'd have survived."

"No. I wouldn't. Not really."

They fell into companionable silence for a few minutes after that exchange, and she took the time to study him. He was clean, but he was still very much a lanky mess of white-blond hair and bruises beneath his eyes, and though his jeans and jacket hid it well, she could tell that he was painfully thin. Idly, she glanced under the table, and her eyes grew wide in surprise. He was wearing boots.

Merlin above, he must be a masochist to wear something that stiff the day after getting out of Azkaban.

She opened her mouth to scold him about it, but another sentence came out entirely. "How was your first day of freedom?"

Draco cocked his head to the side before sighing, and she was certain she didn't imagine the spasm that ran through his hand and into hers. His eyes were like broken glass, she noticed, like she could see the cracks if she stared hard enough. _What happened when I was gone? How bad did it become?_

"It was strange," he finally said. "I didn't know what to do with myself. It doesn't help that my mother still lives in Malfoy Manor. It's home, yeah, but there are so many bad memories in that place. I barely slept a wink last night. It was good to see her again in a place that isn't the visitation room. I'm all she has really. You know my father's serving a life sentence in Azkaban in maximum security. He's never getting out. He's not allowed visitors or letters." His voice cracked, and he turned away. "It's just Mother and me now, but I wish she'd moved to another one of our properties. I can barely breathe in my childhood home, isn't that sad? We spent most of my first day of freedom in the grounds, actually. Just too many bad memories inside the place."

He fell silent, a tear running down his cheek, and her heart broke. She knew what he meant better than most. Squeezing his hand, she gave him a moment to gather himself, knowing it was best not to push right now. The wounds were raw, and this was not the time or place to delve into them.

She was spared having to find an answer for him by the timely return of Sabina. Their waitress balanced a tray in each hand, and the smell made Hermione's mouth water. Since Azkaban, she'd all but lived on tea and muesli, two things that her stomach could tolerate. The cheeseburgers, on the other hand, smelled like greasy heaven.

"Flag me down if you need anything else," said Sabina after setting down their meals. "We make a mean chocolate fudge sundae if you need dessert." Without waiting for them to reply, the waitress took off, and Hermione stared down at her cheeseburger. Draco hadn't been exaggerating. It was huge.

"My stomach is going to hate me," muttered Draco. As if to prove his point, it growled, sounding remarkably like a dying whale.

Hermione chuckled before bringing her burger to her lips, and she opened her mouth so wide that she was afraid she might unhinge her jaw. She bit down, ketchup and grease smudging across her lips and cheeks, and her eyes all but rolled back into her sockets at the taste. Sweet Merlin, it was delicious, from the crispness of the lettuce and grilled onions to the tangy sweetness of the tomato, all the way to the sheer heaven that was the burger itself.

Grease ran down her chin, and she felt like a child who'd forgotten their table manners as she feasted. Looking up, she nearly choked as a giggle rose into her throat. There was a smudge of ketchup on Draco's nose, and he didn't even seem to notice. His eyes were closed as he savoured each bite, melted cheese running down his fingers.

He opened his eyes at the half-choked laughter that escaped her, raising an eyebrow in confusion as he did so.

"What're you giggling at?" he asked, covering his mouth with a melted-cheese and ketchup covered hand.

"You've got ketchup on your nose." She set down her burger, noting that the bite she'd taken had barely made a dent in the enormous meal. Reaching for a serviette to wipe his face clean with, she froze before bursting into laughter.

He was trying to get rid of the ketchup with his tongue.

She didn't know what to make of it. It was something she'd seen the Gryffindor boys try to do at times, but she'd never for the life of her expected to see Draco Malfoy trying and failing to lick a bit of sauce of the tip of his nose. Honestly, it was ridiculous. It was as if the world had turned on its head, but strangely enough, Hermione didn't mind being upside-down when she was with him.

"Stop it." She laughed harder as he strained his tongue forward. "You're going to make me start wheezing."

"Sorry," he chuckled. "Merlin, this tastes so good. And I think I'm going to be sick because my stomach aches right now, but I don't want to stop eating either."

"I remember feeling like that," she replied. "After all that slop, you just want to eat as much actual food as you can get your hands on."

"I can't wait for it to pass," he said. Leaning across the table, he added, "I saw myself in the mirror this morning after stepping out of the shower and nearly fainted. I look ghastly."

"I'm sure it's not all that bad," she teased. The fluttering in her chest grew almost frantic. Merlin, how was it so difficult to wear so much as a smile when she was with other people when it was so easy to laugh until she wheezed when she saw with him?

"I could count my ribs," he said. "Without having to feel for them, I mean. I could count them all just by looking."

"I know," said Hermione. "I can count mine as well. Do I look ghastly?"

"No, of course not. I mean…" Draco paused, looking unsure of himself for a moment. His lips curved into something that could very well pass for his trademarked smirk, and he continued. "Of course, you've got, you know, so the visible ribs aren't what draws the eye when your shirt's off."

As if to drive home his point, he very briefly cupped his hands in front of his chest as if to imitate a pair of breasts.

"You're awful." She had to bite her lip to keep from bursting into another round of laughter. "Absolutely terrible."

"The worst," he agreed with a grin.

Still fighting back laughter, Hermione returned to her burger. It was strange to feel so light when the weight upon her shoulders hadn't lessened in the slightest, when the voices in the back of her mind were nowhere near silent. She didn't mind, though. She'd been looking forward to this date since they'd first came up with the idea in Azkaban, all those months ago. To be honest, it was nothing like what she'd expected it to be.

It was better. It was… a reminder almost, a glimpse into what it felt like to be a normal twenty-year-old girl on a date with a nineteen-year-old boy. Right now, they weren't war veterans and victims of torture, and their demons were mercifully silent. It was a glimpse of normalcy, a flicker of what healing could look like, and Hermione wouldn't trade it for the world.

Finally, when their plates were empty and their glasses were drained, Draco looked up at her. He reached out across the table to intertwine his fingers with hers, and their hands were both slippery with grease.

"So," he said, "What happens now?"

"I don't know," she replied. "Whatever comes, though? We'll face it together."

* * *

_-Day 421-_

Hermione sat at her kitchen counter, nursing a steaming cup of coffee. It was late, nearly eleven, but she couldn't sleep. Her mind teemed with nightmares ready to bloom, and she figured it would be easier to stave off her fatigue with caffeine until she was too exhausted to think. If she was lucky, she'd be too tired to dream.

The coffee was certainly new, as were the packets of dried fruit sitting on her countertop. It made a welcome change from the tea and muesli. Perhaps it wasn't the biggest change in the world, but it was something. _At my own pace, _she thought. _It was for the best. _

A soft melody echoed through her home, emanating from her father's stereo. His cassettes had been stored in a cardboard box beneath the mantle, just where'd he'd left them before forgetting who he really was. They'd had the same taste in music: Aerosmith and Bob Dylan, Nirvana and Celine Dion. Westlife, though… that had been something she'd shared with her mother, even though it had made her father screw up his face in annoyance whenever he'd heard their music.

Her home was filled to bursting with memories of them, and with every passing day, she was finding the sweet beneath the bitter.

_Mama, put my guns in the ground… _It had been her father's favourite song, and he'd played it so often that she'd known the words by heart by the time she was ten years old. _Hey, _a familiar voice whispered in her mind as she listened to the melody. _I know that song. _

Hermione smiled into her coffee. It was difficult to reconcile the memories she had of the Draco she'd known in school with the boy she'd grown to care for within the walls of Azkaban. It had been almost sweet, she thought, to see the man behind the mask, to see the boy behind the facade.

There was a knock upon her door, and she glanced at the clock in surprise. It was late, nearly midnight. A flash of panic coursed through her chest. Had something gone wrong? Was there an emergency? Her best friends were both aurors, and she knew how dangerous their jobs were. Had something happened to either of them? No… Hermione shook her head, fighting to rein in her imagination. If something had happened, she'd have been reached through the Floo rather than the front door.

Setting down her cup, she headed to the front door, and she smiled as she peered through the peephole. _Of course. _Perhaps she had been cooped up in her home for too long if this was how her mind worked because she really should have known who it would be from that single knock.

"Draco," she said as she pulled open the door. "A bit late for a visit, isn't it?"

His smile was sheepish, and the expression was rather strange compared to the haughty sneers she often associated with his face. Standing there with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt, he shivered in the frigid air, mist spilling from between his lips. There were melting snowflakes on his hood, she noticed, and his cheeks were stained pink.

How long had he been out in the cold?

"I, erm, couldn't sleep," he said, his teeth chattering. "I'm sorry if I woke you."

"I was awake," she replied, "Get in before you freeze."

"You sure?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. A droplet of melted slow dripped from his hair and landed on the tip of his nose. "I'd hate to impose."

"Get in." She half-laughed the words as she grabbed him by the arm and tugged. With a grin, he came tumbling into her home, and she slammed the door shut on the cold night. Turning to face him as he stared around her living room, she raised an eyebrow. "So, you couldn't sleep?"

"Pretty much," he said. "I haven't had a good night's sleep since getting out, and then tonight was just… worse. I fell out of bed again and started smashing my head into my bedside table. Scared my mother half to death. You, erm, know how I get when it's bad. I was looking for a distraction afterwards, the same as I'd done all those months in Azkaban without you, and it hit me."

He sucked in a breath, and she'd honestly never seem him sound so nervous. Vulnerable? Panicked? Terrified? She'd heard all of those from him over the year they'd spent in the dark, but nervous? No. This was new. This was very new, and the butterflies in her chest seemed to flutter just a little bit faster.

"I'm not in Azkaban anymore," he concluded. "And I'm not alone anymore. You're here. Granted, you're about ninety miles away, but I'm a very fast flier, so it's—"

"You flew here?" Hermione exclaimed, wanting very much to thump him on the head right now. "Merlin above, Draco, where's your broomstick? What if you'd been seen? I live in a muggle suburb, for Morgana's sake."

"It's on the porch," he said, seeming almost amused by her outburst. "I kept high to stay out of sight, but you know, clouds are wet, and I didn't want to drip water all over your place."

"You're an idiot," she said, dipping her head to hide her smile. "You do realize I have a Floo?"

"I did not," he said. He sighed, and Hermione could feel the warmth slipping between her fingers like grains of sand. "I just… you always helped when I had trouble sleeping, Hermione."

The confession was something she had long suspected and known, but hearing him say it was different. It was a sheer confirmation that he'd depended on her as much as she'd needed him, that they had indeed saved each other whilst trapped in hell. Her arms moved as if on their own accord, wrapping around his waist in what she hoped was a comforting hug. A shiver ran through her as she realized how cold and damp his sweatshirt was.

"You're freezing," she murmured into his chest. "How are you not shivering your teeth off?"

"The Slytherin dorms are under the Black Lake," he replied, his voice soft. "I'm used to the cold."

His heart was slowing to a soothing rhythm, she noticed, and his arms weren't trembling any longer. This was good, right? The nagging voices in the corners of her mind where silent. It was okay. He was safe, and in his arms, she was steady.

It was going to be okay.

"Take it off before you get sick," she ordered, breaking their embrace. "I can find you a blanket or something to use instead."

Hermione didn't have to see his face to know he was grinning. She glanced around the room until she found a fleece throw she'd been using that morning. Grasping it, she turned back to him just in time to see him yanking off his sweatshirt, and her breath hitched in her throat. Merlin, she'd known, and she'd likely been just as bad in her first week of freedom, but to see it with her own eyes.

Draco had always been on the leaner side, even before Azkaban, but now he was downright emaciated. In a jacket or sweatshirt, it was easy for him to pass for lanky, but now that he was standing in front of her, bare-chested, with that unsure look in his eyes… Merlin, she could count his ribs, to say nothing of his hip bones.

"I know, right?" The smile didn't reach his eyes. "Pretty messed up."

"You're alive," she said in an as matter-of-fact a voice as she could muster. "That's worth a lot more than your looks."

Handing him the throw, she sighed at the look on his face as he wrapped it around himself. Sinking into the sofa, he turned away, his cheeks still flushed. Taking a deep breath, she moved so that she was standing right in front of him.

"You're messed up," she said, reaching for the waistline of her sweater. Yanking it off, she fought down the urge to cringe. "So am I."

Like him, she was painfully skinny. It had been just over two months since Azkaban, and her diet of muesli and tea was doing little to put the flesh back onto her bones. Granted, she wasn't quite as bad as him, but she'd had a head start on recovery. He'd get there as well. She'd make sure of it.

"You didn't need to do that," he said. "I'm…"

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," she said, finishing the sentence before he could say anything self-loathing.

Clambering onto the couch beside him, she curled into his side. Draco shifted, wrapping the throw around her as well, and she stifled a yawn. His arm was strewn around her shoulders, and his skin was cool to the touch. The throw would help, she thought. It was soft and luxuriant, and it was definitely warmer than his damp sweatshirt.

"I'm a very damaged person, Hermione," he muttered into her hair. "Inside and out."

"Welcome to the club, Draco," she replied. Her eyelids felt surprisingly heavy. "I'm pretty sure there's a family of rabbits living in my garage, but I can't get rid of them because going in there means seeing my Dad's tools and his motorcycle."

"I walked into Father's study yesterday." He swallowed thickly. "It was an accident. I ended up just standing there for an hour because I could still smell his damn cigars."

"My garden is an overgrown mess, but I can't bring myself to tend it because my mother loved gardening and getting out her tools makes me want to curl into a ball and cry."

"I tried flying this morning because it used to relax me, but I trembled so hard and panicked, and Mother had to get me down." He shuddered. "She hasn't had to do that since I was four."

"And yet you still decided that flying ninety miles at midnight was a good idea." Without hesitation, she reached up and thumped him on the side of the head. "Idiot."

"Ow." Despite everything, he chuckled into her ear. "Can't help it if you make me feel safe, Hermione."

Safe. Yes, that was the word. Hermione's eyelids were heavy, and she cuddled deeper into his side. She made him feel safe, which was a very nice thing to hear, but there was something more. The butterflies fluttered against her heart, and she wrapped an arm around his waist.

"Funny," she murmured, drowsiness thick in her voice. "That's exactly how you make me feel as well."

* * *

_-Day 435-_

At half-past seven, the Floo roared to life as if on cue, and Hermione looked up from her book with a smile.

It had become a norm for him to visit her at night, though mercifully, he no longer flew. She wasn't quite sure if it was because he found the fireplace more comfortable or because he was trying to avoid being thumped again, but she was grateful for it all the same. A great many things could go wrong to a lone wizard flying across the country under cover of darkness, but the Floo was safe.

"My mother wants to meet you," said Draco without aplomb. Dusting the soot off his T-shirt, he kicked off his boots to keep from tracking ashes upon her carpet, and came to sink into the sofa beside her. He'd gained a bit of weight back, she noticed, and his body didn't seem quite as bony as it had when he'd first been freed.

"Interesting," replied Hermione. "Harry mentioned wanting to meet you as well."

"Lovely," drawled Draco, the sarcasm dripping from his words. "An evening with Potter and the Weasleys is going to go just swimmingly for me."

"Because I'm sure your mother is going to be utterly thrilled that you've been cuddling with me of all people," she replied, fighting to hide her smile. Reaching out to run a comforting hand down his arm, she continued, "Relax. Harry and Ron are my best friends, and they know how much you mean to me."

"I'm sure," said Draco, not sounding quite as certain. "Mother, on the other hand… I'm not going to pretend it will be _easy_, but I spoke to her about you. After all we've both been through during the war, she says that all she wants is for me to be happy."

"Is that we are?" asked Hermione with a wan smile. "Happy?"

Draco sighed. Scooting across the sofa, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him on instinct alone. He was spindly and gaunt, and there were days when she thought a stiff breeze would knock him over, but there was no denying the safety she felt in his arms. The murmured voiced in her mind grew silent when she was with him, and her sleep was less restless when he was right beside her.

In his skinny arms, the pain felt like a dream, like a phantom stab from her former life. _Butterflies, _a voice whispered in her mind, and she sighed into his shoulder. _Proof that you can have a second life, a better life. _Was he her butterfly? On quiet nights like this, she thought so.

Reaching out to twine her fingers with his, her eyes fell to the twisted remnants of the Dark Mark upon his forearm. It was an inky stain, warped from the fall of Voldemort, but it was still as clear as day against his pale skin. Glancing at her own arm, a chill ran down her spine. _Mudblood_, the word carved there by Bellatrix Lestrange, matched the placement of his Mark. It was a strange yet almost comforting feeling to know that they'd both been scarred by the war in exactly the same spot.

"I think we're halfway there," he said, his voice soft. "Closer than we used to be, and a lot further than where we started."

That was one way of putting it, she thought as she leaned her head against his chest. His heart was steady, a gentle lull against her ear. She wondered what her parents would make of them and their strange friendship. Would they be happy for her, or would they be sad to see how dependent she was on him for stability? Hermione didn't know, and she'd never get the chance to find out. Memories stung at her mind, and she bit her lip. _We'll forgive you anything, _their voices whispered in unison.

They would. Of course they would. The problem, Hermione knew, was forgiving herself for her sins. Wrapping an arm around his waist to hold him as he held her, she sighed. She needed a distraction.

"Draco," she murmured. "Truth."

"Just truth?" he asked. His fingers were tangled in her curls. "We're not in Azkaban anymore, Hermione. We can play the proper game now."

"I don't think either of us is in any shape for dares," she replied, shaking her head into her chest.

"Oh, but where's the fun in that?" She didn't miss the challenging note in his voice, nor the hint of teasing. "C'mon, Hermione, live a little. We're free, aren't we? Truth or dare?"

_We're free, aren't we? _The words echoed in her head, and she looked up at him with a wan smile. They were, weren't they? _It's good to see the old Hermione fire. _This time it was Harry's voice in her head, spreading through her like a warm thrill. _Live, Hermione, _a final voice whispered. Her mother's, soft and warm. _Don't just exist. Live. _

"Dare," she murmured, and the spark in his eyes caused the butterflies to dance within her chest, their wings fluttering against her heart.

"Touch your nose with your tongue," he dared, a grin spreading across his face. "Since you thought it was so funny when I tried to do it."

She couldn't help but laugh, but she tried all the same. Snaking out her tongue, she strained to reach the tip of her nose. _This is impossible. _Her cheeks tinged pink, she tried to jut out her jaw and screw up her nose, hoping that it would shorten the gap she needed to bridge. Her efforts, however, were in vain, and she was acutely aware of Draco's laughter ringing in her ears.

"There," she said, finally giving up. "I tried. Truth or dare?"

"Dare," he replied. "Hit me with yo—on second thought, how about you don't hit me. I'm messed up enough without you breaking my nose again."

Giggling, Hermione shook her head. In her defense, he'd been exceedingly punchable in their early years, and it had all bubbled to a boil in their third year. He'd also deserved it, to be honest, but bringing that up was a recipe for ending the sudden burst of playful warmth between them.

"I dare you to let me draw on your face," she said, reaching for the end-table. Before he could react, she'd slipped open the drawer and pulled out a permanent marker. Her fingers brushed against a small stack of sticky-notes, and she fought back the memory. Her mother had loved leaving notes for them around the house. _No, not now, not when we're both laughing. _

"You know," said Draco, pulling away from the marker with an apprehensive look on his face. "Theo once used that exact same dare on me in fourth year, and I really didn't like what he drew on my face."

"I'm not Theo Nott," said Hermione, wiggling her eyebrows. "But what did he draw on your face that was so bad?"

"Erm." Draco looked sheepish before glancing down at his crotch, and that was all Hermione needed to know. She doubled over, laughter spilling from her lips as she clutched at her sides, the marker almost falling from her hand.

"Did you not know a vanishing charm?" she managed to ask between her laughs.

"It was magic ink!" Draco shuddered at the memory. "No vanishing or obscuring or anything. I had to stay up half the night scrubbing my face to get it off."

Still laughing, Hermione finally managed to steady herself enough to uncap the marker. Shifting into his lap, she raised it to his face, her fingers trembling as she fought down the urge to giggle. He looked so mortified at the memory, and it was oddly humanizing, not just for him… but for his friends as well. It made them sound like normal teenagers, in a way, instead of the hardened aristocrats she'd seen whenever they'd been in public.

"I promise I won't draw a knob on your face," she said, another giggle escaping from her mouth as she dragged the marker along his cheeks.

He winced at the cold ink, and she moved as quickly as she could without ruining the design. Once she was done with the whiskers, she coloured in the tip of his nose. Ferrets had whiskers, right? They probably did. Merlin, this was silly. Still, when she finally pulled away, she couldn't help herself from laughing at the finished product. If she kept this up, she was going to end up with a stitch in her side.

"What'd you draw?" he asked with a tinge of horror in his voice. "It better not be a knob or something."

Scrambling for his wand, he flicked it once to conjure a hand-mirror, and the alarmed squeak that burst from him as he took in his reflection had her almost falling out of his lap. She grasped his shoulders to steady herself, and he shook his head, as if by moving he could remove the ink.

"You gave me whiskers!"

"And a nose."

"I already have a nose!"

Clinging to him, she looked up just as he looked down. A grin spread across his face as he set down the mirror, and she had to admit that he looked rather ridiculous. It was a good kind of ridiculous, though, the kind that made her fears fade away and scared off her sorrows. He leaned in closer, his eyes widening ever so slightly, and she reached up to cup his cheek.

Their first kiss was a glimmer, a spark of hope in the darkness of Azkaban, but their second kiss was a fire that lit the skies. It was the long nights they'd sat side by side, separated by rough-hewn wall of black stone. It was the scars upon her palm and his frantic outbursts of terror, her tangling herself in her sheets whenever she slept and him falling out of bed, her shrieks and his screams, her sins and his secrets, all coalescing together into a blaze that warmed her from the strands of her hair to the tips of her toes.

If Hermione hadn't needed to breathe, she'd have never broken the kiss. She pulled away, leaning her brow against his, taking in the tinge of red on his ink-whiskered cheeks and the feel of his arms around her, of the steady beating of his heart.

"Thank you," he murmured, "For making me laugh again."

There were a million things she wanted to say and do. _You're welcome _and _thank you for doing the same _and so much more. She wanted to tease him, to make him squeak like he had when he'd seen his reflection, to flick her tongue back towards her nose just so she could hear his laugh again. She wanted to reach over and put on the stereo so he could hear the words to her favourite song, and she wanted to ask him if he had a copy of _Anthem of the Damned _for her to listen to, just so she could see why it was his favourite.

Hermione wanted a million things in that moment, but she settled for the one thing she wanted the most. With a smile, she leaned in for another kiss.


	7. Chapter 7

**.**

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

_-Day 450-_

As they made their way down Diagon Alley, Hermione was acutely aware of the many furtive stares and hushed whispers thrown in her direction. Wondering if she would ever get used to it, she tightened her hold on Draco's hand. Her boyfriend walked with his head bowed, all but hidden in the hood of his jacket, and his gaze was wary. _He should have stayed home. _The glares that were directed at him dripped with scorn and hatred, and if looks could kill, Hermione was certain that her boyfriend would have keeled over the second they'd stepped into the Leaky Cauldron.

"I don't see why we need food," muttered Draco, shaking his head as a passerby hissed something particularly vile in his direction. "You've got muesli and dried fruit and oatmeal and pancake mix in your house."

"I'm not serving your mother pancakes for dinner," retorted Hermione, wanting very much to thump him on the side of the head for even making the suggestion.

"She _likes_ pancakes," said Draco.

"_Everyone _likes pancakes," corrected Hermione. "It still isn't something you serve to your boyfriend's mother for dinner. I want to make a good first impression."

"You're making her only son happy," he replied, a flicker of warmth appearing his eyes as he turned to her. "I think that qualifies as an excellent first impression."

"Still." She flushed at his words and ducked her head. "We're not serving her pancakes. Relax. I'm right here with you."

He nodded, and his grip on her hand was so tight it was almost painful as they entered _Goldstein's,_ the magical supermarket. It had not been Hermione's first choice, but her supply of muggle money was running dangerously low, and she wasn't in the mood to deal with the goblins to exchange the gold in her vault. It didn't help in the slightest that Draco had never so much as held a banknote in his life, though he did regard the concept of paper money with great suspicion.

Making their way through the bustling supermarket, Hermione frowned at several of the groceries on offer. There were the typical turnips, cabbages, and onions, but there were odd vegetables scattered throughout: crates of bright-blue tubers and green bulbs, a leafy red plant of some sort, to say nothing of the jars of herbs and spices, most of which had names she had never heard of before.

"Flamoréweed," said Draco, glancing at the jar she'd picked up. "It's really spicy. My grandmother's elf used to use it for pickling."

"Hotter or milder than masala?" she asked.

"Masala?" He looked confused. "I have no idea what that is."

"It's a spice," she explained, shaking her head.

It was strange, she thought as she set down the jar, that the worlds they both shared could still be so foreign to the both of them. Hermione was willingly devoured books upon books about the magical world upon first learning of it, but there was so much that she still didn't know. On the other hand, Draco often found himself befuddled by things as mundane as the toaster and the hairdryer.

It didn't take them long to pick up everything they needed, though she'd taken care to keep well away from magical ingredients after seeing something that looked like a cucumber _blink _at her. Draco, on the other hand, had been delighted to find that _Goldstein's _stocked Flödgamhost, which was a crumbly white cheese made from hippogriff milk. If he was to be believed, it made for the best grilled-cheese sandwiches in the world, but Hermione felt she may have to take his word for it.

Leaving _Goldstein's_ with several plastic bags in each of their hands, they turned towards to make their way towards the nearest apparition point when suddenly, Draco yelped. Blood splattered across his clothes, and Hermione whirled, the bags falling from her hands as she reached for her wand.

"Murderer!" screamed a tall blonde. Marching across the street, she held an empty flask in her hand. Before either of them could react to the woman, she'd slapped Draco across the face. "Scum!"

An egg sailed through the air, cracking against the back of his head, and someone spat. A globule of yellowed phlegm struck him in the side of the face, but he barely seemed to notice. Instead, he stared at the blood seeping across his T-shirt, barely seeming to notice the blonde woman shrieking into his face. He shook like a leaf, the bags almost spilling from his hands, and when he looked up, his eyes were wide with terror.

Like a deer in the headlights, he didn't even move to defend himself as a rock was hurled through the air, catching him in the shoulder. Another egg came flying, this one rotten, and Hermione shook herself. She'd frozen in shock, but the second she'd seen the look of terror in his eyes, she was moving. Grasping the spilled bags off the floor in one hand, she deftly grabbed Draco by the wrist and tugged, yanking them both into the suffocating blackness of apparition.

With a sharp crack, they stumbled into her living room, and Draco crumpled to his knees. Blood smeared across the carpet, and he was starting to jerk. His eyes wild with panic, he jerked his head towards the coffee table, but Hermione moved faster, flicking her wand to send a cushioning charm spiralling into the table before he could hurt himself.

"Draco," she said, dropping to her knees beside him and pulling him into a hug. He was shaking like a leaf in a gale, and the sour smell of blood and rotten eggs invaded her nostrils as she held him. "Draco, breathe."

"So much blood," he said, his voice cracking with each word. "No, please, stop. Stop. Don't. They've said all they know. Aunt Bella, stop. Don't. So much blood."

"Draco, breathe," she repeated. Grasping him by the face, she forced him to look at her, and she shook her head. "Draco, you're with me. You're safe. The war is over. We're not in Azkaban anymore. Breathe."

His eyes seemed to clear a little. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he shook his head.

"I tried to stop her," he whispered. "There was so much blood. They'd told us all they knew. I _knew_ those kids. I went to school with them. You and I both did. I tried to get Bellatrix to stop. I tried, I tried, I tried."

"I know you did." Her heart broke as she watched him unravel in her arms, jerking and shaking and bloodied, and she was well aware that her hold was the only thing stopping him from dissolving him into another of his fits. "You are _not _the monster they think you are."

"I failed. They're right." He shook his head. "I am a murderer and scum and filth and… and… and…"

"Breathe," she murmured. His jacket squished when she held him, the blood squelching through her fingers. "The very fact that you're here, breaking down and feeling remorse… that proves you're not a monster, Draco. You're just a boy who had no choice."

He nodded, swallowing thickly. Wrapping his arms around her, he sobbed into her shoulder, his chest heaving with every breath. Hermione didn't know how long she sat there with him, and to be honest, she didn't care. Even if it took forever and a day, she'd hold him until his tears dried.

* * *

_-Day 462-_

"The place is really starting to look lived in," said Harry as he glanced around the living room. "Quite nice, really."

Hermione smiled. Her best friend was right, as he often was these days. There were coats and scarves hanging from the hooks behind the front door, and a pair of muddy dragonhide boots on the porch outside. The coasters were scattered across the coffee table, fleece throws folded onto one of the armchairs, and a small pile of quidditch magazines on the end-table.

It was a far cry from the sterile interior she'd kept in her first weeks out of Azkaban, and slowly but steadily, her house was truly starting to feel like a home.

"I think so," she said. "What brings you here so early, Harry?"

"Do I really need an excuse to visit my best friend?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

In response, she merely raised an eyebrow of her own and folded her arms. They'd known each other for nearly ten years now, and she knew full well that he was up to something. It was nearly ten in the morning, for one thing, and he should be at work.

"Fine." He chuckled, holding up his hands in surrender. "Ginny's gone into a right meltdown with the wedding three weeks away, and I needed to escape. For the love of Merlin, Hermione, what is the difference between fuchsia and amaranth?"

"One's a few shades darker than the other," she said, finding it difficult to keep the scepticism from her voice. "So, you just decided that you needed to escape from wedding planning… while you were at work… a place where she can't possibly be having a meltdown because it's the auror office and she'd be removed."

Getting to her feet, she rolled her eyes at the sheepish expression on his face. As she marched past him to the kitchen, she reached out to ruffle his dishevelled hair in exasperation.

"Nice try, Harry, but he's not home right now, so you'll have to work on your ambushing skills," she said. "Tea or coffee?"

"He's not _home?_" Harry shot out of his seat, seeming rather taken with what she'd said. He followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the counter. "Hermione Granger, how could you?"

"How could I what, Harry?" she asked. "Again, tea or coffee?"

"Move Malfoy into your house and not tell me," he exclaimed. "I told you everything about Ginny and I."

"I didn't move him in." She rolled her eyes. "He just happens to spend more time here than he does at his manor, and I like having him over, and it's comforting to us both, and then his clothes started piling up in my hamper and he started packing his oatmeal into my cupboards and I s—Harry, stop grinning like that."

"What? Can't I just be happy for you?"

"You can be happy about me without that smug look on your face," she said, handing him a steaming mug.

"I'm just wondering why it is that the two of you are living together, you've met his mother, and that Ginny and I still haven't been invited over, nor have you accepted any of our invitations over." He tapped his cup with his hand to bring it to a suitable drinking temperature, wiggling his eyebrows the entire time. "Are you embarrassed of us?"

"No. Of course not." Hermione was dearly beginning to wonder what it was about the men in her life who made her want to thump them so often. "It's just… Harry, we went grocery shopping a few weeks ago, and he got pelted with pig's blood and rotten eggs."

"He _what?"_ Harry nearly dropped his mug. "Merlin, Hermione, you could have said something before. I'm an auror, remember. I could have sorted that mess right out."

Hermione sighed. She'd wanted to go to the aurors after what had happened, but Draco had refused. They'd gotten him cleaned up and changed into something clean, and they'd managed to salvage enough of their groceries for her to prepare a passable pasta dish for dinner, but he'd clammed up at the slightest mention of the aurors. In her own way, she could understand his hesitance. She had several friends on the force; Harry and Ron, for starters, and Terry and Padma as well. On the other hand, he didn't, and it was likely that his only experience with aurors had been Maslow, Sonenclair, and Williams.

The mere thought of the aurors of Azkaban sent a shiver down her spine, and she had to steady herself against the counter.

"It won't change anything, Potter," said a wan voice from the doorway. "I did what I did, and if people treat me like shit, I only have myself to blame. It is what it is."

Hermione whipped around as she Draco walked into the kitchen. She hadn't even heard him come in through the Floo. On instinct, she rose up on the tips of her toes as he approached her, and he leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek before turning to Harry and extending a mittened hand.

"Malfoy," said Harry, surprise evident in his voice. Accepting the handshake, he smiled. "Nice to properly finally make your acquaintance."

"Likewise," replied Draco. He swallowed, his fingers linking with Hermione's beneath the table, and she gave him a reassuring squeeze. "Thank you, by the way. I haven't had the chance to thank you properly for getting me out of Azkaban."

Harry regarded him with a curious gaze, and Hermione could all but see the thoughts blazing behind those bespectacled green eyes. Draco's words still hung heavy in the air. _It is what it is. _No, she decided. It doesn't have to be. _Butterflies, Hermione, _her mother's voice whispered, _they're God's proof that you can have a second life, a better life._

Azkaban had been their cocoon, and the crimes they committed would forever remain as black marks upon their souls, but it didn't mean that they—that _he_—had to suffer the punishment for the rest of time. He served his time, as she'd served hers, and the piper had been paid.

"You know," said Harry finally, snapping her from her reverie. "A wise man once told me that if we judge people by who they were, we'll never really get to see who they might become."

Draco blinked, seemingly stunned into speechlessness. For her part, Hermione had never wanted to hug Harry as much as she did in this moment. She'd always been able to see the glint of his mentors in him, the streak of Sirius, the gleam of Remus, and even the wild spark of darkness that had come from Barty Crouch Jr during his days posing as Alastor Moody… but this was perhaps the first time she'd seen that all-too-familiar twinkle in his eyes.

"Come by this Friday for that dinner I've been dodging," said Draco, finally finding his voice again. "What do you say, Potter? Fresh start?"

"Sounds good to me."

* * *

_-Day 472-_

"I think it might be best if I left now," whispered Draco, his gaze flickering across the ballroom in discomfort. "Some of these people look like they want to pickle my kidneys."

Hermione sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder as she linked her fingers with his. Glancing across the room, she came to the quick conclusion that her boyfriend wasn't exactly wrong. She had never in her life seen Xenophilius Lovegood look so murderous, and if looks could kill, then the glares coming from some of the other guests would have left Draco decomposing the minute he walked in through the door.

"Relax," she murmured. "Breathe. None of them will dare make trouble _here._"

Swallowing thickly, Draco nodded, and his grip was as tight as a vice. It had been easier during the ceremony. Every eye and ear in the chapel had been fixed upon Harry and Ginny as they exchanged their vows, and though there had been a few hiccups before the ceremony, most of the ire in the air had dissolved once Harry had warmly shaken Draco's hand. Idly, Hermione wondered if she'd been selfish to ask Draco to come as her plus-one, but to be honest, she needed his support.

There were dozens of people with dozens of questions, and a great many of them didn't quite seem to even consider that _she _may not want to talk about Azkaban, or her trial, or her life in general. She was here for Harry, her best friend, a man who'd become her brother in all but blood through the friendship they shared, and for Ginny, who was another of her best friends. Had it been any other wedding in the world, Hermione was certain she'd have begged off having to attend.

They were sitting near the corner of the room, their chairs turned away from their empty plates. Scooting her chair closer to his, she rolled her thumb across his fingers in comforting motions. It had been a rich seven course meal, and the food was sitting quite heavily in her stomach. The soup had been light, the bread had been fluffy, and the scallops had been delicious, but almost every course that followed had made her grasp her stomach to keep it from gurgling too loudly. There was no doubt that it could have been worse. Had it been a month ago, the two of them would even now be bent over a pair of toilets and making offerings to the porcelain gods.

"Distract me," he whispered. "Please."

"How was your visit with Theo and Daphne?" asked Hermione, thinking quickly of something that would take his mind off the glares.

"It was good," he replied. "Nathan pulls my hair a lot. Calls me Uncle Dwaco."

"You're good with him," she replied. "Who'd have thought _you'd _be good with toddlers."

"I know, right?" A faint smile curled across his lips, and his grasp loosened around her hand. "My great-aunt Walburga used to say that children are God's way of punishing us all for having sex. I was a bit relieved when she finally died, to be honest."

"She sounds like a very…" Hermione trailed off, not knowing what to say. Her mind trailed to the portrait of Walburga, and she winced at the memory. Finally, she settled on, "She sounds like a person."

"Nasty as a fungus, that one," said Draco with a shrug. "Even Mother tended to avoid Grimmauld as much as she could when I was a child."

"I had a great-uncle who was rather similar," said Hermione. "We visited a few times because Mum and Dad felt bad for him, but he was a horrible racist. He also had these toffees that he gave me, and I think they predated the world wars."

"My grandmother was like that." Draco shuddered. "Grandmother Giovanna. She had these hard candies that tasted foul, but she lived with us, so there was no escaping her. She pinched my cheeks a lot."

"You never talk about your father's parents, I've noticed," she said, turning to him. "I think that's the first time I heard your grandmother's name. Giovanna and Abraxas… Is it a rule for Malfoys to have such… interesting names."

"Not much to tell," said Draco. Something flickered across his eyes. "Grandfather died of the pox when I was young, and Grandmother spent the next few years making everyone around her miserable until she died of an apoplexy. It was an arranged marriage, and there wasn't much love lost between them. I doubt they wrote their own vows or anything like that."

"You say it like writing one's own vows is the most cheesy thing in the world," she teased, drawing the topic away from something he clearly didn't want to talk about. "Don't think I didn't see you smile when Harry and Ginny were exchanging theirs."

"I smiled because I was trying not to burst out laughing," replied Draco. "Seriously, Hermione, Potter is many things but a poet he is not. _You're the silver lining to my every stormcloud? _Really?"

"There's a story there," she said with a smile. "You'd have to be in the know to understand, I suppose, but it's sort of like when I say you're my butterfly."

Draco grinned, and with a flush, Hermione realized that she'd said that last bit out loud. Inclining her head, she looked up into his eyes and didn't miss the amused glimmer. With a quick glance around them, he leaned in to peck her on the lips, and she shook her head before returning it to his shoulder. _Butterflies, _her mother's voice whispered as Draco wrapped an arm around her shoulders, _they're God's proof that you can have a second life, a better life. _

Well aware that their brief exchange of affection had attracted a few dirty looks, she reassuringly tightened her grasp on his hand. Nobody would dare make trouble at the wedding, she knew, but the pig's blood incident was never far from her mind when they were in public together. Her worries were spared, however, when the doors of the ballroom burst open, and the bride and groom rushed into the room.

Harry had never looked so ecstatic in his life, and Hermione wanted to laugh as she caught sight of his hair. It figured that even on his wedding, it would be as dishevelled as ever. At his side, Ginny looked beautiful in her wedding gown. Idly, she recalled Harry mentioning that they'd wanted to arrive at their reception on their broomsticks but had been vetoed by Molly, and she wondered what that would have looked like.

"They look happy," said Draco as the newly wed couple made their way to the dance floor for the opening number. As the band began to play a lilting melody, he winced. "How in the world is Potter so good on a broom, yet so terrible at dancing?"

"Harry's always had two left feet," replied Hermione with a chuckle. Watching as her best friend somehow managed to step on both of his wife's feet at the same time, she winced as well. "Though, I think he may have taken some classes before the wedding."

"This is him after classes?" Draco sounded appalled. "Bloody hell, I could dance better than that when I was five."

"Can you still?" asked Hermione, raising an eyebrow as she climbed to her feet. Her stomach protested, but she forced down the pang. One dance wouldn't kill them.

Draco frowned up at her, his gaze flickering back to the dance floor. Turning, Hermione noticed that several other couples had joined Harry and Ginny: Molly and Arthur, George and Angelina, Bill and Fleur. At the edges of the dance floor, other couples were preparing to make their way up as the band switched to something slightly more upbeat.

"I haven't danced at a ball since I was in fourth year, Hermione," he said, a flash of nervousness crossing his face. "And I definitely haven't danced somewhere that everyone wants to trip me up."

"Everyone does not want to trip you up," she said, pulling him to his feet. "Besides, what was it you said to me? Live a little, Draco."

"Fine," he said, a tentative smile spreading across his face. "But if you step on my feet, I'm not spooning you tonight."

"As if." She laughed, her back to his chest and his arms crossed in front of her. Tilting her head up to meet his eyes, her smile only grew upon catching sight of his grin. "You're a cuddler and you know it."

"Only for you," he murmured, and without another word of complaint, he allowed her to lead him to the dancefloor.

* * *

_-Day 500-_

As the cold grey light of dawn peeked in through her bedroom window, Hermione couldn't help but think of the man sleeping next to her. In the quiet hours of the night, there was a sense of peace upon his features that otherwise was never there. He still tossed and turned, and he'd fallen out of bed more than a few times since they'd begun sharing a bed—Merlin, but that brief period in their relationship when they'd always fallen asleep on the couch had not done their backs and joints any wonders—and she sometimes still woke in a cold sweat, her sheets tangled around her legs, but it was nowhere near as bad as it had once been.

Shifting so that she was on her side, she watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest. He never used a shirt to bed, but this was perhaps the first time that she really noticed the lack of visible ribs. He was still a rather lean and lanky mess, but without his skeleton on display, he made for an attractive mess all the same.

"You're staring," he muttered, not opening his eyes.

"I'm gazing," she replied, trying to mask her surprise. It wasn't like him to wake so early, especially on a weekend. "It's romantic."

"It's creepy." Reaching out, he grasped a pillow and pulled it over his head to obscure his bedhead from view. He continued, his words muffled by the pillow. "Didn't anyone ever teach you that it's rude to gawk at people while they're asleep."

"Gawking?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. Reaching out to yank away the pillow, she chuckled at his indignant expression. "I thought I was staring."

"I thought you were romantically gazing?" He cracked open his eyes, an amused glint dancing across the grey as he rolled onto his side. "So…"

"So?"

"So why were you gawking and gazing and staring at such an ungodly hour?"

Without hesitation, she thumped him across the chest, and he burst out laughing. Deftly, he grasped her by the waist and pulled, rolling them both over so that she was lying on top of him, and he was grinning even as he flushed. It was a good feeling, she thought, to be this playful despite the shadows that lurked around every corner. The nagging whispers silent in her mind, she cupped his cheeks in her hands, idly wishing she had her permanent marker with her.

No wizard in the world could pull of whiskers as well as he could, after all.

"You're amazing, you know that right?" he said. "Can I tell you a secret?"

She cocked her head to the side, raising an eyebrow. If anything, Hermione was surprised that there were any secrets left between them in the first place. Everything had been laid bare, from the story of her first words to the full story of exactly what he'd gotten up to at that Hobgoblins' concert. It was the beauty of their distractions, that they shared everything without hesitation in their desire to forget that which had broken them.

Broken, she thought with a smile, but broken in such a perfect way that the shards fit together like the pieces of the same jigsaw.

"Of course you can," she replied finally.

"For the longest time after leaving Azkaban, I was afraid that you'd one day wake up and realize how much better than me you were." His voice was soft, his walls and guard down, and she felt a shiver run down her spine at his words. _Never. I would never think that. _"I was afraid that you'd leave for someone better, someone who isn't as damaged as I am. Someone who doesn't kick you in your sleep when he has night terrors. Someone who didn't spend months living on oatmeal and tea. Someone who could walk down the street with you and not get pelted with filth."

She opened her mouth to say something, and he reached up to clamp his palm over her lips. She glared, and he shook his head.

"Let me finish," he said. "I was afraid to lose you for so long, but that's not the real secret." He shifted, sitting up so that she was straddling his lap, his palm still clamped over his lips. His free hand fell to her waist, and he smiled. "I'm not afraid anymore."

A million thoughts flooded her mind as he removed his hand from her mouth, and there were thousands of things that she wanted to say. The butterflies fluttered within her chest, and she was acutely aware of their position, of his grey eyes and his tousled white-blond hair, of how steady and safe she felt with him, of how the entire world could be burning down around them, but all she'd care about was that he was safe.

"I love you," she said, and the butterflies soared through her, filled her with their fluttering warmth as his smile shifted into the brightest grin she'd ever seen.

"I love you," he replied. A breath of nervous laughter burst from his lips at the words. "I love you, Hermione."

The kiss that followed their confessions was a frenzy of emotions that left her breathless and dizzy, and she leaned her brow against his. _Draco Malfoy, _she thought, her nose brushing against his, _I never thought that you'd one day be this important to me. _It was a strange love that had bloomed between them, a fluttering of glowing wings in the darkest of places, but he'd become her port in any storm. His arms were her sanctuary, his kiss her bliss, and as his hands ran down her sides, she couldn't help but giggle into his lips.

In the darkest of places, he'd turned on her light, and they'd found their happiness. From their scars to their imperfections, their warped edges and nightmares, to the bitter memories and tears… it was a rare kind of beautiful, one that she'd never believed herself capable of finding.

"You know," he murmured, his lips ghosting across her throat. "I have a lot of things I want to say right now, but your pyjamas are making it really hard to think."

"I know," she teased. "Don't think I can't feel you stabbing me in the thigh through your shorts."

"Stabbing?" He grinned at her. "It's a big knife, if I do say so myself."

"Idiot." She thumped him on the side of the head, and he laughed as he spun them down onto the bed.

"Your idiot," he replied, and as he kissed her, Hermione knew that no matter the road ahead, it would always be okay, so long as she had him by her side.

_-Fin-_

* * *

**Author's Note****: **

_A big thank you for every favourite, follow, and review. It's been a blast writing this, and there will be an __**epilogue**_ _to follow sometime this week. If you enjoyed this Dramione, please stay tuned for two of my future stories that are currently being plotted out and drafted, both of which will be Dramiones: __**White Lion **__and __**Game of Survival. **_

_If you enjoyed my writing and would like to see other stories set in the Dramione verse, I'd recommend __**Envenomed Petals **__(Mostly Scorpius/Lily with Dramione in the background), __**After All This Time **__(Pure Dramione), and for Dramione angst, there's the two-part collection of __**Broken Dreams **__and __**Healing Nightmare. **_

_Much love, another big thank you, and wishing you all the best,_

_-Shane_


	8. Epilogue

**.**

* * *

**Epilogue**

_**Nine Years Later**_

* * *

"Dad?" asked Scorpius. "What does your tattoo mean?"

Hermione paused beside her son's bedroom door, raising an eyebrow at the question. It was a good one, she had to admit, but it was certainly not something that most four-year-olds would think to ask. Nudging open the door, she leaned against the doorframe, and the smile that spread across her face was one that she couldn't help.

Scorpius was in bed with Cuddles, his stuffed ferret—and, Merlin, but she could still remember the way Draco had indignantly spluttered when she got home from work with that particular toy, and the blanket pulled up to his chin. With his shock of white-blond hair, stormy-grey eyes and skinny frame—all elbows and knees—he looked very much like the baby pictures she'd seen of her husband.

Draco perched on the edge of the bed, still dressed in green healer's robes, a storybook closed upon his lap. _The Frog Prince,_ thought Hermione, glancing at the cover. It was their son's current favourite, though he tended to change his mind about these things at least once a month. Disney was making a movie of the fairy tale, she knew, and knowing Draco, he was going to insist that they took Scorpius to the cinema on opening night.

"Dad?"

Her husband blinked, turning to glance at her. With an imperceptible nod in his direction, she crossed the room and came to sit beside him on the edge of the bed. Snaking a reassuring arm around his waist, she adjusted herself as best she could against him, well aware that her stomach was only going to get bigger over the next few months now that they were expecting their second.

"What about my tattoo?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at her son as he stuck out his tongue at her. "Is mine not cool enough?"

"Mum," he whined, stretching out the word. "You both have the same tattoo."

"He's got you there, Hermione." Draco chuckled, reaching out to link his fingers with hers. Turning back to Scorpius, he smiled. "How do you know that tattoos have meanings?"

"James told me," Scorpius replied, nodding excitedly. "He says his Uncle Charlie has _loads _of tattoos and rides dragons and even has _piercings. _Mum, can I get a piercing? It'll be wicked cool."

"Maybe when you're older," she said, hoping that by the time he was older, he'd have forgotten. Leaning in so that her lips were an inch away from Draco's ear, she whispered "Remind me to never let Charlie babysit."

"Remind me to have a word with Harry about what James overhears. I swear, that boy has his father's nose for trouble," whispered Draco, shaking his head.

"It could be a Prince Albert piercing," said Scorpius. "James says he heard his Uncle Charlie telling his Uncle George that he plans on getting one, and that his Aunt Angelina warned his Uncle George that if he ever got one, she'd cut it off."

Draco turned red, and Hermione felt as though she needed to go out for a breath of fresh air. That was… not something she'd have ever expected to come out of her son's mouth, and she doubted she'd ever be able to look Charlie in the eye again. Leaning back to her husband's ear, she hissed:

"Remind yourself to hold me back next time we see Harry, because I swear to Merlin I'm going to thump him so hard. He's also never babysitting again. Never."

"Agreed," hissed Draco. "And remind me to tell Ginny, because we both know she'll tear him and Charlie a new one if she hears what James has been hearing."

"Mum! Dad!" Scorpius scowled, folding his arms across his chest and glaring up at them. "Stop whispering and answer me."

"He gets the bossiness from you." Draco rolled his eyes before scooting closer to their son. "Okay, Scor, but you're going to have to promise to go to bed right after, is that fair?"

Scorpius nodded, and Draco stretched his left arm out in front of him. Slowly, he rolled up his sleeve until it was well past his elbow, and the tattoo on his forearm was on full display. Two butterflies were inked across his pale skin, their wings blotting out the Dark Mark that had once stained her husband's skin, and Hermione smiled as she rolled up the sleeve of her jumper. Their tattoos were the same, down to the last detail, with the only difference being that hers were to obscure the still-vivid word carved into her skin.

"Butterflies, Scorpius," said Draco with a wan smile. "When we were younger, your mother and I were very sad and angry. It was like… do you remember the story I read to you last night, the one about the girl who slept by the fireplace and wore shoes made of glass?"

"Cinderella, Dad," corrected Scorpius, sounding distinctly unimpressed. "I remember it better than you, clearly."

"Merlin, above." Draco groaned. "How is it that he looks like me, but every time he opens his mouth, it's your voice that comes out?"

"Yes, Cinderella," said Hermione, thumping her husband in the back for that last remark. "Do you remember the part when Cinderella was locked in the attic and she was very sad?"

"Yes." Scorpius nodded, looking unsure of where this tale was going.

"That was Mum and I," said Draco with a wan smile. "But, when it was really bad, do you know what your mother told me? It's actually something that your grandmother used to tell her."

_Butterflies, Hermione, _her mother's voice whispered into her head, and she smiled as she rested her head on Draco's shoulder. She was starting to believe that this particular phrase was going to become a bit of sage wisdom in her family tree. One day, they'd have to tell their son the full story, but for now, it was best he simply learn the truth that had saved them both in the dark.

"What?" Scorpius asked, stifling a yawn.

"That butterflies are God's proof that you can have a second life, a better life."


End file.
